This sandwich provides food for thought

CERAMICIST Karen Thompson has been making a packed lunch that she wants to share with people in York. She’s made 300 sandwiches, mainly cucumber, but with a few cheese with mayonnaise ones too.

Just don’t try eating them and be careful you might break these slices of white bread with a filling – they’re made of porcelain.

Her ceramic sandwich “multiples” are on the menu at York Curiouser which invites the public to view site-specific artworks in hidden parts of York. They cover a range of media including sound, poetry and textiles, and developed for locations as diverse as the National Centre for Early Music, the city walls, the Treasurer’s House gardens and the snicker ways that lace the city.

Thompson’s sandwiches are being placed on park benches around the city with these “stale” sandwiches. People might smash them, move them or even take them home with them.

The idea has been in the back of her mind for some time through seeing tourists in Scarborough where she lives although she comes from near Newcastle. “When I started to think about York Curiouser the idea seemed ideal because it’s a heritage site and people come with families for a day visit. Part of that experience is making a packed lunch,” she explains.

“I remember as a kid packed lunches being made. Flat white bread sandwiches are such a curious food – take two pieces of white bread and put a filling in. I made a sandwich and then took a cast of it in a plastic mould. Most have cucumber in them although I did some cheese and mayonnaise too.”

She’s uncertain what the public will do with ceramic sandwiches left on park benches.

“That’s going to be exciting and challenging because they look very real, more real than artistic,” says Thompson, who can’t eat bread at present for dietary reasons. “Should I have put glaze on to make them obviously ceramic?

They look like stale bread. Some are going to get pushed off the benches and broken.

Others might be taken away. That’s interesting because it challenges people’s preconceptions. There’s no colour – they’re just white, which doesn’t sit right in your brain when you see one. You have cucumber but no green on the edge.”

As for someone trying to eat one of her sandwiches, she says “I don’t know if anyone would eat a stale sandwich off a park bench”.

Karen’s work is part of York Curiouser

She has inscribed each sandwich with @ yorkcurioser and hopes those that encounter – or even take – them with respond and interact on twitter.

The artworks could become collectables with several people already telling her they’re determined to find one. “I’m deluded if I think there are going to be any left at the end,” she says.

Other York Curioser artworks include: In Between, a new sequence of poems by John Wedgwood Clarke that will be found about the snickers, passages and yards of York that inspired them. Susanne Davies has a new thread installation in the grounds of Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.

Textile designer Sally Greaves-Lord’s banners, inspired by the medieval banners of the Guilds of York, will be on the city walls near the Quilt Museum.

Matt Hawthorn’s Everything There Is To Be Known features playful works including miniature sailing and flying umbrellas.

Heinrich & Palmer are using lights, mirrors and water to create “an illusory space” at the Red Tower in Foss Island Road.

At Fishergate Posterntower, Janet Hodgson is creating The Institute of Historical Correction using fictional artefacts.

Karen puts her ceramic sandwiches into a hamper

Jacques Nimki, who creates artwork from wild flowers and weeds, presents an installation of handbags and weeds at the National Centre for Early Music.

There is free admission to all venues.

• For more visit yorkcurioser.com