This project explores migration and border regimes, using food as a lens to question ideas of Britishness, belonging, and cultural “purity”. As border regimes tighten and right-wing narratives increasingly define British identity as a biological trait, the book asks:

What happens when seemingly apolitical, national traditions are subjected to a similar logic of harshness and exclusion in search for purity?

In this cookbook, a compilation of recipes is stripped of all ingredients and influences not considered native to the UK, drawing a direct parallel with the harshness of current British migration policies. By applying a similar exclusionary logic to one of the core elements of British culture, this project aims to expose both the unfairness of such treatment, as well as to highlight the thought that culture grows through movement.

Inspired by Bruce Nauman’s work on the book Burning Small Fires, a response to Ed Ruscha’s work, this project will act as a critical reinterpretation. All recipes will be sourced from The British Cookbook (2022) by Ben Mervis. Through dissecting these recipes and tracing the origins of their ingredients, this project points out that migration plays a meaningful role in the creation of traditions that seem purely national.

The choice to merge an artist’s book with a cookbook stems from the idea that a familiar, rarely politicised medium can become a powerful tool for critique. In terms of production, a photo-transfer technique is used to extract recipes from the original publication and insert them into the new book. Once non-native ingredients are removed and the remaining elements are scanned, risograph printing is adopted as the primary printing method. This choice also references the historical use of risograph printing in protest and activist publishing, while its capacity for layered printing mirrors the process of systematic removal applied to the recipes.

The act of removal is a direct response to this year’s theme of critical refusal. It refuses the erasure of the heritage and origins of ingredients that are readily absorbed into British culture, while the state simultaneously enforces exclusionary immigration systems. These systems rely on undeniable violence and brutality to deter migration yet continue to enable the extraction of resources. In a globalised world, movement should not be one-sided.