Throughout history, eggs have appeared in countless artworks, serving as a universal symbol of life, growth, and transformation, representing various concepts such as fertility, birth, creation, and resurrection. In many mythologies, the egg is associated with the world’s birth and fertility. In ancient Egypt, for example, the Milky Way emerged from the waters as a hill of rubbish, and the god Reborn from an egg laid on this mound by a celestial bird.

The egg also can represent the renewal of the cycle of nature in the context of the ceramic installation commissioned for Frieze Sculpture Park titled “The Debate” by Holly Stevenson, an oversized half-boiled egg placed near adult life-size figures. Typical of the artist’s practice, the figures are composed of abstract and figurative elements, and here, they meld to form anthropomorphic birds that, on account of the glazing, recall ducks.

In response to “The Debate”, hosted by Pi Artworks and Sid Motion Gallery, in collaboration with artist Holly Stevenson and the curator Huma Kabakci, the art audience and public were invited to an egg act by offering a symbolic vegan egg as a gesture. While the audience listened to the artist and curator talk further about the work, the references and the story behind it, they were encouraged to touch, smell and taste the vegan egg that resembles a real egg in form and texture.

Each Egg Act included 88 vegan eggs to hand out with an artist edition picnic bag on three occasions with the dates: 19th of September (Frieze Sculpture Press Preview), 11th October and 29th of October.

Photo Credit: Charlie Gray & Duru Bebekoğlu