Experiments in resilient creative cultural practices.

In Table Vivant, monomaterial design concepts based on food source are explored to design edible tableware for a table landscape that includes food, textiles, tableware & dye sensitized and edible solar cells (Temporary photoElectric Digestopians). The table landscape will serve as a medium to communicate principles of resilience and interdependency.

The project has 2 complementary goals: - to explore how food generates both calorific (Joules) & electrical energy (Watts) & how this parallel can be taken into account when evaluating ecosystems. - to learn from traditional crafts, biology, biomimicry & food science to design environmentally resilient cultural experiences.

The starting point are plants with properties suitable for making food, textiles & solar cells (e.g berries). Local ethno-culinary traditions, biological & ecological context of the chosen plant is studied and a scenario for an ‘edible’ dining environment is designed. The experiment should be transferrable to different localities in Europe.

Table Vivant is by the hands of Carole Collet (MA Textile Futures Course, CSM) and Bartaku (FoAM) with the help of the Future Textiles CSM students.

Mushroom Packaging “Packaging materials that are 100% renewable, and primarily made from agricultural byproducts and mycelium, a fungal network of threadlike cells. It’s like the “roots” of mushrooms. In 5 – 7 days, in the dark, with no watering, and no petrochemical inputs, the mycelium digests the agricultural byproducts, binding them into a beautiful structural material. The mycelium acts like a natural, self assembling glue. These low-embodied energy materials can be home composted when they’re no longer needed. This technology is a radical departure from traditional bioplastics. While feedstocks for bioplastics are typically food crops, we’re able to upcycle very low value waste products.” - company site > ecovative design

• Interview with Carole Collet - http://www.3lectromode.com/?p=343
• MA Future Textiles, Central Saint Martins, University of London - http://www.csm.arts.ac.uk/ma-textile-futures/
• edible_alchemy