Arts Council England funding proposal.

40 Rosebery Ave, St Werburghs, Bristol, BS2 9TN
Tel: 0117 9553780

Applying to:

Developing and realising visual arts project, Grant for artists:

• http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/individuals.php

• http://duo.irational.org/food_for_free/
• http://duo.irational.org/food_for_free/proposal.html

1. You and Your work.

FOOD FOR FREE.

Bristol is becoming a centre of biodiversity in comparison to its 
surrounding agri-business countryside.

We intend to make a map of all the wild, domestic and feral free food 
sources within the city of Bristol. This map will be published on the 
Internet and as a printed paper calendar.

A survey will be carried out by walking the streets of Bristol identifying 
and eating organisms then collating gathered data into homemade mapping 
software.

Products will be made from the gathering of foods and distributed via 
markets, feasts and trade routes.

We aim to mix service industry technologies with old country craft methods 
eg a system to dry fruit via a computers ventilation systems and jams 
labelled with national grid references.

Like many natural world interactions the pursuit of 'wild food' is 
predominantly perceived as a rural pastime. The idea of looking for wild 
food in the grey - brown drabness of towns and cities may seem somewhat 
wretched. However, the city is still home to a diverse range of 
domesticated, feral and wild flora and fauna. The disobedience of plants is 
so remarkable that we find them infiltrating all manner of off limits 
places, carried via humans, animals and wind alike.

The project acts as a report on the state of Bristol's surplus resources, 
which are not piped through any economic market.

Parallel to the mapping of free food will also be the locating potential 
planting sites. Spaces of forgotten, abandoned or ambiguous ownership could 
be seen as the remaining cracks that reveal to body behind the city's 
concrete garment.



We will also research the land management and planting policies of the main 
planting bodies within Bristol. Many of the wild foods around Bristol are 
the result of discarded organic material such as apple cores thrown from 
railway trains. We will contrast these chaotic methods with official 
planting methods. Questions to be answered are: which plants are encouraged 
or discouraged in public space ? Which plants can cope with urban stress ?

A series of social and political investigations and interventions will be 
generated out of engagement with these issues. Such as the extension and 
contraction of boundaries and the blocking and unblocking of routes. 
Interviews, events and detailed information will be published within the 
calendar.

These investigations will be branching off from the main concerns and 
the duration of investigation be one day to one week.

The Calendar

The calendar will act as a practical guide and a visual document drawing 
our mish-mash of inter-relational materials together.

Aesthetically the calendar will be a mixture between trash business 
calendar with situationist, country craft overtones.

We intend to print 500 black and White calendars sell a portion at 4GBP 
each. Distributed locally via cultural organisations from the Arnolfini to 
the Create Centre this will cover to sectors of specialism that will 
benefit from such a work.

We will also distribute a number of copies freely and internationally to 
institutions and artists.

A launch of the calendar will take place at the Cube Cinema for all ages 
with a weekend of relevant activities.

Mapping

Maps act as tools to identify and navigate ones surrounding.

Every super-pedestrian and modern day explorer have their own mental maps 
shaped by personal priorities and frequented landmarks.

We will create a map with edible organisms as landmarks.

A survey of North Bristol will be carried out and the data entered into a 
database, thus generating a map, marking the food source to the nearest 5 
metres.

Heath Bunting is developing an open source map of Bristol. One possibility 
for the map is to use it as a platform for artists to represent various 
projects and views of Bristol overlaid upon each other. Food for free could 
be one of these layers.

Irational.org is a significant Artist collective server with an 
international audience we receive ,,, hits a year, so the work will be 
viewed widely

    http://locate.irational.org/bristol_map/

All the free foods mapped will be within 'Public' space, this public 
includes any private plant which intrudes. A tree may be planted in private 
ground, but its branch may grow into a public arena.

We intend to query this map on several levels, for example:

What can we deduce about the health or wealth of areas of the city?

How many other animals have mental maps of these food sources ?

Will the publication of free food locations create competition and 
depletion or will it encourage more awareness and more planting ? 

Previous related work:

• Peckham Free Food Walk: http://duo.irational.org/food_for_free/presentations/peckham_free_food_walk/

• We lead a group of interested Londoners around Peckham, 
  locating, lecturing and consuming (where pollution allowed) local free food.
  This walk was part of the Mark Dion show at the South London gallery.

• Food Packs: http://duo.irational.org/lunch_packs/

• Food Packs are a range of prepacked snacks, labelled
  with adventure suggestions. Food is often agency for individual
  or social adventure. Food Packs were intended to suggest and
  inspire personal adventures through consumption and sharing of
  food. Food Packs also provide practical sustenance and a moment
  of reflection consumption during adventures.

• Botanists Guide: http://duo.irational.org/botantical_guide_to_borderxing/

• Botantical guide to borderxing is a pocket paper publication
  providing both a colour introduction to border ecology's plus
  encoded information to aid unauthorised international border
  crossings.

• Do It Yourself Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid Day: http://irational.org/heath/DIY_DNA_DAY/

  • DIY DNA DAY was both a hands on and a theoretical
    biotech workshop run by artists for artists, held at The Cube in
    Bristol. Activities ranged from indoor scientific film screenings
    to dirty bio street interventions.

• Natural Reality Superweed: http://irational.org/cta/superweed/

• Natural Reality Superweed was an attempt to break
  the myth that you need a million dollar budget and a doctorate to
  do biotech. With 500 dollars raised by Internet appeal and no
  biology education I constructed a GMO (Genetically Modified
  Organism) project in under 4 months. It was also an attempt to
  finally marry the concrete with the symbolic, which is where I
  believe lies the true excitement of biotechnology for
  artists.
  Superweed is currently being weaponised in preparation
  for missile delivery by n55: http://www.n55.dk/

• Biotech Hobbyist Magazine: http://irational.org/biotech/

• Biotech Hobbyist Magazine was an attempt at an on-line
  magazine for domestic enthusiasts providing news, views and most
  importantly practical projects. It was modelled on the hobby
  electronics magazines through which I educated myself to such a
  degree that I build myself a computer from scratch at the age of 13
  in 1980.
        

• Growing Things: http://www.year01.com/issue7/banff.html

• Growing Things was a conference held at The Banff Centre,
  Canada co-organised by myself and the director of the New Media
  Institute, Sara Diamond. It was attended by a full spectrum of
  practitioners ranging from scientists to art students. My role was to
  mainly source non-institutional projects and people.

  http://www.banffcentre.ca/bnmi/

2. Making it happen

The Cube Cinema has agreed to host our launch events for the Food For 
Free Calender the cost of venue and programme publicity will be support in 
kind. The launch events are scheduled to take place in March 2007.

Artist Kate Rich has agreed to distribute and publish any free food 
products including the calender via her Feral Trade project.

Schedule:

• April 2006 to January 2007 - Survey and mapping of North Bristol free foods.

• All accessible public or semi-public spaces in North Bristol will be
  explored and surveyed for existing edible organisms and potential
  planting sites.

• April 2006 to December 2006 - Gathering, planting and cultivation of organisms.

• Seeds and plant cuttings from wild, feral and
  cultivars will be collected and replanted around North Bristol in
  safe zones.

• April 2006 to December 2006 - Construction and priming of online reference databases.

• An administrative interface and database will be
  constructed for reference and ordering of data collected
  throughout the project.

• April 2006 to December 2006- Create a harvest calendar of free foods.

• A monthly map will be produced detailing the
  locations of foods currently available for harvesting.

• April 2006 to December 2006 - Harvesting of free foods.

• Each month, using our harvest calendar, we will
  collect the in season free foods.

• April 2006 to December 2006 - Create products and product recipe database.

• Product recipes making use of the available
  harvest will be researched or devised to create free urban food
  products.

• June 2006 to June 2007 - Distribute products.

• The best of the free urban food products will be
  distributed both locally and worldwide by the Feral Trade
  Courier. http://sparror.cubecinema.com/feraltrade/courier/

• March 2007 - Publish a Food For Free Calendar. Host Launch event.

• A calendar will be produced containing 12 
  monthly food maps along with research results and methods.

3. Your budget

Budget.

4. Benefit to you and the public

Audience

We view creating participatory events integral to our practise; we like to 
engage with an audience on a level were there is opportunity for direct 
experience. We make this happen by making events. Throughout the Food For 
Free project we intend to make a series of local events inviting others to 
join us on excursions, with the ethos that Doing It Yourself. During the 
launch of the calender we plan to host a series of large scale events 
including an event specifically tailored for children.

We want the project to impact on the local community immediately: 
Throughout the project, we will be talking and working with others to gain 
knowledge on the subject and local area. This will be a public interaction 
on a very daily level.

The published work on the Internet will have an international audience from 
the unsuspecting web wanderer to the viewer who will hear about the works 
via mail outs, publications and word of mouth. Irational.org is a well 
respected art server with an ever increasing audience. We currently 
irational.org receive over 100,000 visitors a month.

Reaching the Audience

The printed Calendar will be available on sale in a number of venues around 
Bristol which represent a cross section of society, culture and specialist 
disciplines: kebele cafe in Easton (activist centre); The Arnolfini (art 
institution); The Create Centre (environmental centre); The Here Shop 
(sells independent media); and The Cube Cinema (cultural centre).

Food For Free will be promoted in a range of cultural communities from 
street to the office. This can only contribute to open diversity. Food For 
Free will be a medley of paradigm and style.

We envisage a wide variety of audience for this project as it can be sited 
in various contexts from arts to science.

Relevence of the project

The context for our work is often sited within the public realm. Food For 
Free is a public art work designed to probe, question and enhance social 
networks.

We will be interacting with arts organisations and individuals throughout, 
building upon the shared network.

Work that engages in cross culture and cross discipline is of contemporary 
importance. This project will be of interested to the arts community 
proposing contemporary questions such as: What is the role of the Artist in 
public sectors? Where is the artist in relation to everyday experience?

In 2005 we were invited to give talks about our practise at:

- The Arts and Ecology Symposium held at the RSA in London to an Audience 
of 300.

- The Arts and Ecology Symposium at Dartington School of Arts.

There is evidence of interest in projects of this kind locally and 
internationally. We continue to have positive feedback and interest in how 
we work and the concerns we try to push in the projects.

5. Meeting our ambitions for the arts

 Supporting the artist

Food for Free will provide us with future work via lectures and 
exhibitions, both locally and internationally. It will increase ours and 
others understanding of the city and challenge perceptions on the way in 
which we view the city.

Support from the Arts Council will enable us to produce the work to a high 
standard, we are are in no doubt about the importance of this project.

This project will nourish both concurrent and future projects of ours. We 
are already inspired to further action and art by this project 
concept.

6. Evaluation

We intend to document both the project sections and the resulting 
overall context generated.

We will be taking part in local and national free food events and 
discussions to gain feedback and development.

We will also be soliciting post project responses from participants in the 
form of reports and ideas for future projects and collaborations.

These will be published on the event website.