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Aluminium milk churn, copper piping, rubber tubing, glass condenser, thermometer, glass bottle of distillate, printed text, wooden crate/ plinth. Dimensions variable
Co-produced with Platform, Vaasa, Finland
“In How to make Musha in Vaasa the artist describes her attempts at brewing moonshine during a residency in Finland. The work consists of a still designed and assembled by the artist, the components of which are exhibited in the secretive back space of the gallery. The bespoke crate used to transport the work doubles as a plinth, its lid serving as a wall-mounted shelf holding a bottle containing the homemade liquor. The installation is accompanied by a text with instructions aping the straight-faced injunctions of Conceptual Art, as well as technical drawings of the still which, incidentally, are reminiscent of the plates illustrating the Encyclopédie. Browne’s showpiece of learning-by-doing alludes to the history of 19th-century Finnish immigrants to the United States, who took up clandestine distilling during the prohibition era. Moonshine is traditionally associated with the working classes, more particularly with men; an illegal activity, it threatens both the social and economical order – an issue to which Scandinavian governments are particularly sensitive if their restrictive policies on alcohol consumption are anything to go by. By brewing her own illicit liquor, Browne, who drew on a circle of people to help her with technical advice and construction, thus staged a collective act of autarkic resistance.”
- Alice Motard
Exhibited at
Unto This Last, Raven Row, London, 2010, curated by Alice Motard and Alex Sainsbury
Exhibition texts by Glenn Adamson and Alice Motard
