Salt has been an invaluable contributor to the building and maintaining of human civilization. Salt gave humans the ability to preserve and store foods making us less dependent on only what is available seasonally. As salt preserves tangible material, it thereby preserves the stories that those materials have to tell.

Salt also has medicinal uses as it has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial attributes and has long been appreciated for its spiritual properties, appearing in ritual and ceremony in a multitude of indigenous spiritual practices

No one salt sources produces a salt that is exactly the same as another. The composition and behavior of the salt is informed by its environment making salt both and archiving material and an archive in itself.

The salts in this exhibit were collected in West Africa. The larger crystals coming from Senegal (left), the finer crystals coming from Benin (right) acquired on the side of the road while traveling the path to the port of no return on the beaches of Ouidah.

also in this photo: Tomato is an incredibly prolific plant. This summer our tomato plants gave us far more than we could consume and share before they went bad, so we dried some them and are preserving them in oil to prevent food waste and give us the option to include tomato in our meals throughout the year