The Victoria and Albert Museum’s latest exhibition, ‘Food: Bigger than the Plate’, explores humans’ evolving relationship with food. Displaying over seventy projects, commissions and collaborations, the show explores how innovative individuals, communities and organisations are reinventing how we grow, distribute and experience food.
Urban Mushroom Farming
Growing mushrooms since 2009, GroCycle is an innovative social enterprise focused on cultivating mushrooms. On display, their farm installation shows the circular food economy at its best. The installation utilises waste coffee grounds from the museum’s café to grow oyster mushrooms. Once grown, the mushrooms are taken back to the café to be served in dishes. Go online to grab yourself a grow-your-own Urban Mushroom Farm kit. They also offer a low-tech, mushroom farming online course with more than 50+ video lessons detailing how to plan, build and run a small scale mushroom farm.
Ooho! Edible Water Bottle
Exploring a plastic-free future, ‘Skipping Rocks Lab’, displays it’s innovative, edible water bottles. Essentially an edible drink capsule, Ooho are made from Notpla, a material developed from one of nature’s most renewable resources – brown seaweed. With the growing capacity of approximately one meter per day, it doesn’t compete with food crops, doesn’t need fresh water or fertiliser and actively contributes to de-acidifying our oceans.
Brexit Egg Cup Pair
Stimulating a deeper range of senses, painter, Harriet Coles, displays her novelty tableware. Her satire Brexit egg cups are a witty take on the traditional 18th century Willow Pattern, re-imagined, to display a ‘Hard Brexit’ and a ‘Soft Brexit’. Now, that’s food for thought!
Showing until October 2019, don’t miss out on the opportunity to catch some of the UK’s most interesting and thought-provoking food-related ideas and concepts!
By Charlotte Phillips
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