Sarah Sparkes
"CHUTNEY PRESERVES 2: the rot sets in"
drawing by Andrew Cooper

‘Chutney Preserves - One’

The park was Brockwell Park in Brixton, and all of this happened during a hot summer weekend at Lambeth Country Fair in August 2005.

It was a very lovely occasion where friends met, strawberries were eaten, cricket and tennis was discussed, and the sun shone throughout. People assembled to listen to the delightful music by our resident DJ.

to see the first Chutney preserves click here

However, those days are now gone. That was 3 years ago and since that halcyon weekend, it has rained a lot, a work by the dead Rothko that had been bought for $8,700 was sold for $73,000,000, and some people have stopped talking to other people. Further more, the optimism that was then viewed as being a realist opinion, has now been supplanted by a sense of real doom. The state of being needs to be re-addressed, and so we propose to bring back ’Chutney Preserves’ for another summer weekend and as an opportunity for enlightenment, baptism and resurrection. However, to do this, it is essential, in fact intrinsic to the cause, that the current state is acknowledged and even embraced, and this is what we propose.

The ’Chutney Preserves - One’ event was staged in a marquee that was dressed in bunting, and was a joyful vista of dry straw bails, jams, gingham throws and daisies.

However, ‘The Rot Sets In...’ will be a much muddier and grottier affair. Camberwell Arts Week's theme is ‘green’; we see mould, gangrene and sickness.

Come and Join the Second Chutney Preserves, when on the Sunday 22nd June we shall re-claim 'Tramp Island' for the under classes of London. We shall assemble with our rotten art and revolting persons on Camberwell Green - the rotten green heart of Camberwell.