26 Flavours / Seaweed

As part of the 26 Flavours Of Cornwall project, myself and writer Kieran Haynes were asked to produce a piece of work about seaweed. The project paired 26 writers with 26 designers, matched each team with an item of Cornish produce and challenged them to come up with pieces of art that combine words and design in the form of paper table-settings. There will then be an exhibition of the work at Trebah Garden.

To give ourselves a taste and a feel for seaweed, we were put in contact with Miles from Foodswild (http://www.foodswild.com/), who forages around the Cornish coastline for this rather tasty delicacy! Miles took myself and Kieran, my partner in crime for this project, down to Porthleven to jump around the rock pools and pick out some seaweed for our lunch!

After a morning of foraging, Miles had pointed out and picked 4 or 5 different types of seaweed. Some of which we even tried raw as we stood on the rocks! The rest were to be taken back to Miles' house, for him to show us several different ways of cooking up our pickings. You can have a look at our 26 Flavours page, where Kieran has jotted down some notes on our day in the rock pools http://www.26flavours.com/flavours/seaweed.

It was now our job to use our experience, and try to combine some imagery and words suitable for our ode to seaweed. Above is a first idea i had, taken from Kieran's blog post titled 'Monsters Of Rock (Pools)'. The idea then progressed to some kind of creature made of seaweed, looking up, and praising the moon and the lunar tides that dictate it's life! Below is a draft, close to the final image that was used for the final piece, minus Kieran's words. You'll be able to see the finished article at the show at Trebah Gardens!