crafts of the truffle cultivator

Ethnographic visit to a truffle cultivator in the South of France to learn from him and observe his bounds with those fungi, followed by a creative process to identify salient aspects of his crafts in farming and managing a business between local and international scales.

Sometimes epistemology emerges from empirical experiments and oral transmission when mycological science remains voiceless to explain for instance cultivation successes of truffle cultivation. Savoir-faire, a term borrowed from French, means to know in the making, the know-how that precedes the know-why. For instance, trimming, ploughing, watering, and sowing truffle leftovers are seasonal tasks my participant has found successful amongst other experiments that he reconducts every year. He sometimes works in collaboration with researchers of the CNRS, but there still are many grey areas in mycology, enclosed in the density of the earth (as shown by the black cards).

This work is composed of 22 A5 cards drawn with charcoal. The final layout was negotiated with the truffle cultivator when presenting back the series to him. Each line displays tasks according to cultivation seasons and related commercial and social activities enabling a small producer to make his living.

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