Works relating to cider and communal drinking cultures on display at RAMM

Published: 21 January 2022

The new display is part of Here’s to Thee, a joint commission between RAMM and University of Exeter Arts & Culture, led by internationally renowned artist Simon Pope.

Collaborating with a team of creative practitioners and academics, Pope’s fascinating project explores the complex ecology and cultures of cider-making.

On display in the Core Wall in the centre of the museum are a selection of communal drinking vessels from RAMM’s collections, alongside contemporary works made in response to wassailing events held at Gray’s cider farm in Halstow in 2020 and 2022. Wassailing is an ancient ritual which includes walking in between apple trees, singing the wassail song, and drinking cider from a communal wassail bowl.

The contemporary bowl on display was thrown from Dartmoor clay found at the Gray’s farm, by ceramic artist Abigail North. It was used as a traditional communal drinking vessel in the first Halstow wassail in January 2020.

Photography by Robert Darch and a new film by Bevis Bowden are also displayed, both of which record the second Halstow wassail in January 2022. They show the ancient rituals carried out to ensure a good harvest of apples in the coming year, including the performance of a new wassail song written by Jim Causley and performed by shanty singing group Mariners Away.

Simon Pope describes the Here’s to Thee commission as a ‘multi-disciplinary and participatory art project that experiments with our relationships with the many non-humans – especially the microbial life – involved in cider-making, and explores the ways in which our social worlds are formed in relation to them.’

Here’s to Thee is commissioned by RAMM and University of Exeter Arts & Culture in partnership with Gray’s Devon Cider, supported by Arts Council England and Canada Council for the Arts.

The Here’s to Thee display can be viewed in RAMM’s Core Wall from 31 January 2022.