Will Pavia
Taking the biscuit
Southwark Weekender
15 oct 2004
Former workers from former Peek Freans Factory gathered at a Bermondsey art gallery last week to do their bit for the international state of emergency (..) The gallery is distributing food aid in the form of nutritional biscuits, cooked to a specially designated recipe, to visitors to the gallery and on the streets of Bermondsey. The exercise is partly a reference to a relief operation of 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war. When the prussians lifted their siege of Paris, Peek Freans supplied thousands of biscuits to the starving citizens.
Earlier this summer, artist paula roush organised a 'Memory Factory' gathering archive material and calling on former Peek Frean workers to come to contribute their memories of Biscuit Town. Her new exhibition is also a response to the hunger crisis which she believes comprises the real international emergency (...)
Crates of biscuits are being distributed by horse and cart on Tower Bridge Road and on the Blue (...)