Rooted in material explorations of dreaming and mysticism, How to Cook a Wolf brings together works by five artists—Kristi Chen, Chiedza Pasipanodya, Alison Postma, Sriwhana Spong, and Charlott Weise.  Spanning ceramics, furniture, sculpture, painting and video these selections offer embodied and sensorially intimate encounters, transhistorical narratives and ripe potentials. This exhibition draws inspiration from M.F.K. Fisher’s 1942 feminist cookbook, published during the bleak austerity of WWII, where the author envisions strategies for living well in the context of near starvation–including recipes for concocting “sludge.” Together, the works in this exhibition evoke an atmospheric environment for fantasy and imagination that extends beyond the limitations of gender, personal or cultural circumstances. 

Commissioned for the 17th Istanbul Biennial, Spong’s This Tree is Mine! (2022) traces dreams of trees across multiple centuries: amongst the artist and two female figures associated with Sufi mysticism in the 8th and 9th centuries, Rābiʿa al-Adawiyya and UmmʿAbdallah. Here dreams of trees become rich symbols of self-expression and forms of knowledge production. Both a respite and an invitation for interaction, Postma’s Kissing Chair (2022) offers a contemporary interpretation of a Victorian conversation seat. Historically used to facilitate courtships or to share state secrets, these armatures encourage potential lovers or gossips to sit side-by-side and whisper.  

Nestled amidst hand-woven netting, the surface of Pasipanodya’s various Saggar and raku-fired baobab fruits bear the traces of objects placed on their surface before they are fired. Indigenous to Africa, the fruit holds nutritional, medicinal and cultural value and is ripened on trees upwards of 300 years old. From fruit to wine, Weise’s select paintings from Notes on Wine, allude to cultivation and the after effects of inebriation, as well as the incentive to engage with subconscious aspirations or desires. In another body of work, Weise reconfigures female icons with gestural brushwork across unstretched canvases. 

In Chen’s Baskets Blighted (2021) the artist practises forms of basket making, a technique derived from her paternal family in Shouning, Fujian province. Emphasising the hand-made component of collecting and preparing a recipe for incense paste, the neck of this ‘imperfect’ basket is charred with the smells of cinnamon common to Wuyi Rock Oolong Tea cultivated in her ancestral lands.

Returning to Fisher’s question of living well, the author suggests that notions of pleasure are a byproduct of perspective and reminds us that “you must do with the resources you have to keep the wolf from snuffling through the keyhole.” As the inaugural exhibition at two seven two, the works included in How to Cook a Wolf offer a potent concoction of different outlooks.

Kristi Chen (b. 1997, Vancouver, CA) holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture/Installation from OCAD University (2021). Recent exhibitions include the J Spot (Toronto), ArtchMtl (Montreal), the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Between Pheasants Contemporary (Kerns Township), and Artscape Gibraltar Point (Toronto Islands). Chen lives and works in Toronto.

Chiedza Pasipanodya (b.1987, Harare, ZW) is an artist, curator and writer. Chiedza holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Criticism and Curatorial Practices from OCAD University, and will be undertaking a Master of Fine Arts at the Cranbrook Academy of Fine Arts (2023). Chiedza has exhibited at Nia Centre for the Arts, Xpace Cultural Centre, and Whippersnapper Gallery and curated exhibitions with The Art Gallery of Peterborough, Aspace Gallery, BAND Gallery, and Nuit Blanche. They were a Toronto Biennial of Art Curatorial Fellow (2022) and have sat on committees and juries with the Royal Ontario Museum, Nia Centre for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts, and the inaugural Black Curators Forum (2019). They live and work in Harare and Toronto.

Alison Postma (b. 1994, Oakville, CA) holds a Bachelor in Studio arts from the University of Guelph and a Bachelor of Craft and Design from Sheridan College. Their practice is multidisciplinary, creating works of photography, video, and sculpture. Recent presentations include Akin Vitrine Space (Toronto), the Drake Devonshire Living Room (Wellington), Art Gallery of Hamilton and Ed Video (Athens). She was awarded the 2020 Emerging Digital Artist Award, presented by EQ Bank and Trinity Square Video and in 2023 received the Gladstone House Artist Residency (Toronto). Postma lives and works in Toronto.

Sriwhana Spong (b.1979, Auckland, NZ) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland (2001) and received a Masters of Fine Art from the Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam (2015). Her work has been included in significant group presentations including at the: 17th Istanbul Biennial, Tai Kwun Contemporary, (Hong Kong), Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, The Jewish Museum (New York City), Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney), and 18th Biennale of Sydney. Significant solo exhibitions include: Spike Island (Bristol), Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (New Plymouth), and DAAD Gallery (Berlin). Spong has been the recipient of multiple residencies including with the ISCP (New York City) and Gasworks, (London). In 2012 and 2021 she was nominated for New Zealand’s premiere contemporary art award, the Walter’s Prize. She lives and works in London (UK).

Charlott Weise (b. 1991, Görlitz, DE) studied at the HfBK Dresden and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She was a participant at De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2014-2016). Her work has been exhibited at Kunsthalle Münster, Classics Museum (Dublin), GEM (Den Haag), W139, (Amsterdam), Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen (Netherlands), Belmacz, (London), NEVVEN (Gothenburg), and Wschód, (Warsaw) amongst others. She lives and works in Amsterdam and Görlitz.