News

We are celebrating the completion of my PhD in Innovation Design Engineering at the RCA. The PhD was funded by the AHRC as a collaborative doctoral award between the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

You can download the thesis ‘The Department of Seaweed: co-speculative design in a museum residency’ at this address: http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/3704/

I am invited to speak at Bio Art: Altered Realities at the Tate Modern on Thursday the 26 November 2015, 18.30 – 20.00. The evening will be chaired by William Myers, author of the eponymous book ‘Bio Art’.

It is exciting to be officially invited back to the Tate Modern where we held an inofficial maggot exhibition and intervention ‘Maggotypes’ fourteen years ago. Back in 2001, the East Room @ the Tate Modern was open to the public and filled with visitors who enjoyed the spectacular view over the Thames. It did not have security personnel or CCTV, so it was the perfect location for Gero Grundmann and myself to exhibit the work of some talented maggot artists in a series of performances.

The audience was allowed to select a maggot-artist who we then interviewed. It answered our questions via ink trail.

As the performance went on, the audiences drew nearer to the table as the maggot turned from disgusting to funny to cute (maybe not cute for everyone but certainly for some).

Afterwards we were asked: “What happens to ‘Bill’ (or Dick, William, Sandra) now? You are not going to kill him, are you?” – Mission accomplished!

Today the exhibition ‘Earth Matters’, curated by Li Edelkoort, opens at Artipelag near Stocholm, Sweden.
I am showing the Oki Naganode, a large seaweed sculpture made in 2013 at the V&A and the Urushi Houses, made in collaboration with Urushi craftsmen from Wajima.

EARTH MATTERS: When Natural & Creative Forces Meet
DATES: 6 February – 3 May 2015
PLACE: Artipelag Art Gallery, Värmdö, Sweden
CURATORS: Lidewij Edelkoort & Philip Fimmano

More info: Earth Matters PR ENGLISH

http://www.artipelag.se/en/exhibition/earth-matters-when-natural-creative-forces-meet

Design from Nowhere won the first Icelandic Design Award, yay!

The project was curated by Pete Collard and Karna Sigurðardóttir. Designers Gero Grundmann, Max Lamb, Thorunn Arnadottir and myself collaborated with craftsmen in Eastern Iceland. The results were exhibited during Design March at Spark Gallery in Reykjavik. Underneath you can see some impressions of our fantastic time in Iceland. Congratulations everyone!

Karna and Thorunn receiving the prize

Designs from Nowhere display at Spark Gallery, Reykjavik

Collecting kelp on the shore

Seaweed lamp

Antler Trains by Gero Grundmann

Antler trains and wooden houses by Gero Grundmann

Pete Collard as wanderer above the sea of fog

Kelp Geometries

Icelandic Seaweed

Polar Bear made from sheep bone by Gero Grundmann

Seaweed vessels

A micro volcano on seaweed

Stone Cubes by Max Lamb

Skipping Ropes and bag by Thorunn Arnadottir

Micro-Ocean