Framer Framed

In these hands-on workshops, participants explore the intimate, tactile connection between the body and dough, weaving in ancestral narratives and folkloric traditions. Bread is examined not only as a cultural artefact but also as a political symbol – carrying stories of survival, resistance, and dignity across time. The sessions will include sharing stories, kneading, sculpting, and reflecting – culminating in the collective baking of ‘bricks’ of bread.

Common Ground are one of the artists-in-residence as part of the Bread Art in the Molenwijk programme. From March to October, Werkplaats Molenwijk organises participatory workshops and festive activities about cultural rituals and creative traditions within the art of bread making, such as flour drawings, sculpting with dough and baking bread installations. Local residents are invited to share their bread stories with the Bread Atelier: a group of artists-in-residence who develop artistic bread activities in the neighbourhood. The results will be exhibited on 11 October in Werkplaats Molenwijk.

Common Ground

“We speak of bread as a living material. Dough comes to life when yeast feeds on sugars, releasing gas. It ferments, it breathes, just like us. In the oven, this living mass transforms into life-sustaining nourishment. And around the act of making bread, life unfolds.”

 We invite you to gather with us, to remember our relationship to the land through living bread: the smell of dough, the heat of the oven, the scent of fresh bread, of mornings, of home.

 Bread, in its simplicity, sits at the foundation of everything. Just flour, water, and salt. Yet it finds its way into all imaginable conversations: politics, weddings, popular culture, funerals, revolutions, and beyond. From its humble form as flatbread, “never simple, never unsophisticated,” to its metaphorical role as a building block, to its folkloric meaning as blessed bread.

Bread Art in the Molenwijk is made possible by Amsterdam 750; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; the Alliance; Municipality of Amsterdam / North District; and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.