Salt
Over the past 9 months Fairland Collective and Feast have been working with the Lion Salt Works Museum, a former open pan Salt Works in Marston, Cheshire. Active from 1894 to 1986, the Lion Salt Works produced salt by boiling and evaporating brine pumped up from beneath the Cheshire soil. Feast: Salt has grown from our initial contact with the museum and its volunteers, whose knowledge and stories introduced us to the complex histories of the area’s salt-shaped landscape.
Beyond an introduction to the context of the Lion Salt Works, Feast: Salt brings together content that explores and reflects upon aspects of other salt-shaped geographies - from coastal hinterlands to the manmade landscapes of industry and Empire. Relating histories of money and power garnered through the production, distribution and ownership of salt, as well as various accounts of the rich history of diverse customs and rituals of salt consumption, the issue reflects something of the complex and enduring role of salt across geography, culture and industry at the point of their historical and continued entanglements.
