Hosted at Serendipity Arts Festival 2024
Facilitated by Eleni Michael, Fermentation Expert

Pickling isn’t just a method of preservation — it’s an act of multispecies collaboration. In Build-Your-Own-Pickle, fermentation expert Eleni Michael invited participants to engage directly with the microbial worlds that sustain us, using their own hands to ferment and flavour seasonal ingredients.

Grounded in the idea that 70–90% of the cells in our bodies are bacterial and fungal, this workshop explored how fermentation connects our bodies to broader ecosystems and ancestral knowledge systems. Participants learned how preparing food by hand, especially in fermentation, allows for a cyclical, intimate exchange between the human and microbial worlds.

Key highlights included:

• Hands-on pickling of local, seasonal ingredients using traditional and experimental methods.

• Reflections on how the microbiome in our hands plays a role in fermentation, nourishing not just the gut but our relationship with food and nature.

• Conversations about how external influences — like environment, community, and society — shape our ferments, much like they shape ourselves.

• Discussions on fermentation as a metaphor for community resilience, nourishment, and multispecies entanglement.

Participants left with their own jar of fermenting pickles — a living, transforming object carrying the microbes of their own hands and the Goan environment.

About Eleni Michael:
Eleni is a fermentation expert and educator whose work explores the relationships between food, ecology, and embodied knowledge. Through workshops and collaborative projects, she advocates for reconnecting with traditional food practices and microbial culture as a tool for sustainable living