Wild Edible Drawing No. 11

Inspired by I Ching, an ancient Chinese book of divination, the avant-garde composer John Cage is well-known for employing ideas of chance in his music. A keen naturalist and avid mushroom gatherer, in the last years of his life Cage created so-called edible drawings from plants he collected from the woods and fields near his studio in the mountains of North Carolina. As in the case of his musical compositions, I Ching helped to determine the individual ingredients he employed in each one. With these works, Cage highlighted a stark reality: his handmade paper of ingredients fit for human consumption referenced the fact that starving populations in South America would, in desperation, boil the ink out of paper and eat it.