Raw Margins

The Raw, The Cooked And The Hydrolysed

Fred Warren | Dark Mountain Project | 12th July 2023

On the cultural impact of ultra-processed foods, foodstuffs formed in factories by "the fractioning of whole foods into substances". The spoil-defying properties of these foods speak to our obsession with evading death. "There is no sense of time in UPFs. They appear uncannily pre-formed, while their smooth, hyperpalatable textures melt away, leaving little trace of their existence" (1,948 words)

Mending At The Margins

Diamond Abdulrahim | Vestoj | 12th July 2023

Interviews with repairers. Dry cleaning, alteration and cobbling are dying arts. "'You’ve got to have a good eye and you’ve got to have a steady hand. Trimming rubbers and leathers. Don’t cut your fingers off or your chest you know, because you’re working like this towards your body,' he demonstrates by holding a shoe and a small cobbler’s knife horizontally towards his chest" (2,538 words)

To mend a shoe
Is nice to do
To help you feel
Your own sole heel
Just feast your eye-
let's really try -
On good reads. Mend
With what we send...