The ‘Closing Ritual’ of the Dear Earth exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on 30th August 2023, began with Out of Time, a culinary performance by artist Cherry Truluck. Taking place under the Super Blue Moon, Out Of Time is a glimpse into Truluck’s long-term artistic research praxis (The Animist Almanac) exploring oat cultivation and fugitive temporalities.  During the performance, with a camera focused on her hands, Truluck dissected a young oat plant to reveal it’s newly formed floral meristem, whilst delivering a poetic performance lecture. She served audience members a drink of ‘moon milk’ made from the recent harvest of her own oat crop and wild plants found within its ecosystem.

“The growth of an oat plant has been broken down by agricultural scientists into 92 distinct stages or moments. Between growth stages 30 and 31, which is approximately where these plants are (gesture) an incredible thing happens, the development of the primordial inflorescence. Totally invisible from outside the plant, the flowering body of the oat develops in miniature within the stem. The whole potential of the plant is present at this moment – it is a kind of portal between the past knowledge it carries and the future it is looking forward to. a temporal paradox, the ourobouros, the snake eating its own tail, both a point in time (event) and also a continuity, like the Webb telescope images in which one sees not a single time event but a composite of space time, made possible by the refraction of waves of light over a period of millenia.  There is no guarantee I will find one today, but I will keep peeling back the leaves.…” excerpt from Out of Time

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