Inspired by Marwa Arsanios’ film on Indigenous farming practices guided by the Moon, and by the principles of biodynamic agriculture and its attunement to celestial rhythms, and following in the footsteps of Mayıs’ grandmother Emine, who had her own way of communing with her hazelnut orchard, listening for signs of how generous her unpredictable tree-friends might be that season, this intervention centers the Moon and the cosmic energies that echo through our soils.

Under a Last Quarter Moon, a table was set with twelve bamboo steamers; an ode to the twelve signs of the sky, each like a house of the zodiac.

Inside the steamers: mantı, a moist Turkish dish often eaten during Ramadan, a Moon holiday known as the sultan of the eleven moons, served with tomato-butter sauce and garlic yogurt.

The stacked steamers rose like plant stems stretching upward, pulled by lunar force.
Shredded vegetables evoked roots: always reaching down toward gravity. Potatoes and tangy peppers, cut into vinegary strips.
Corn, garden peas, olives arranged like celestial dots.
Wild garlic, leaf and stem, fresh and pickled into white kimchi.
Sponge mushrooms: moist, generous, open.
Seaweed salad with oceanic memory. Leafy greens, strips of leek and radicchio, purple carrots soaking in vinaigrette.

Mirrors on the table brought in literal reflection, of the sky, the faces, the food, the moment.

Endless moist thanks to Erika Sprey for inviting us once again into her brilliant curatorial cosmos.