Bog Butter

An ongoing culinary, sculptural ritual

Bog Butter Retrieval #1 (still image)

2022

Mattawa, ON

Over the past three years, I have been reenacting ancient bog rituals, with a particular interest in the creation of bog butter. Bog butter is a cultural phenomenon consisting of caches of butter that have been found while farming peat bogs. The butter can date anywhere up to 5,000 years. Due to the anaerobic conditions of the bog, the butter is preserved and is still edible, although its taste is altered. In an effort to rebuild cultural relationships with boglands, I have been burying butter in bogs at one-year intervals and hosting tasting sessions in both artistic and academic settings.

In recent months, I have been designing use-specific ceramic vessels intended for the burial of butter. Their form is inspired by the biology and mythology of boglands. Throughout history, bogs have acted as sacred offering sites, burial grounds, and clandestine storage of valuable goods. Today, these environments are threatened by the mining industry. Through this work, I am looking to prove that ecosystems such as bogs, inhospitable to the human, may instead help reframe ideas of nature within the Capitalocene, offering different frameworks for living.

Bog Butter Burial #1

2021

Mattawa, ON

Bog Butter Tasting and Bundle Making Session #1

2023

MKG127, Toronto, ON