Attend Smashing Chocolate Event!

Edible Histories is an arts project underway as part of the Bristol 650 celebrations. Five giant chocolate sculptures of historic objects have been created, wrapped in gold foil and displayed with the original artefacts within museums across the city.

On 21st October, 11am-12.30pm, at St.George’s Bristol, all the chocolate objects will be brought together for the first time and then broken up. The event will include an introduction about the project by the artist Luke Jerram and a talk by historian Dr Richard Stone who is a specialist in Bristol’s chocolate history and the transatlantic slave trade. All the objects will be introduced by specialists representing the participating venues from across the city.

The five objects will then be broken up using hammers and chisels with live musical accompaniment! Attendees get to take bags of chocolate home with them.  5oo free tickets to this event are available, and can now be booked on Eventbrite here.

Microcosmos - New Artwork in Development

Microcosmos is a new artwork commissioned by The University of Sheffield for Biofest 2023. 

Diatoms are single-celled microscopic algae that can be found worldwide in marine and freshwater environments. They are the only organism on the planet with cell walls composed of transparent, opaline silica (glass). Diatoms are an enigma, neither plant nor animal, they share biochemical features of both. Like plants they photosynthesise, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen. They do this on a massive scale, performing an estimated 20% of the earth’s entire photosynthetic carbon dioxide fixing – that’s equivalent to all the rainforests combined! They’re effectively responsible for the air in every fifth breath we take. Find out more.

Power of Light

To celebrate the 125^th anniversary of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Luke has been working in Freetown, Sierra Leone in collaboration with their ARISE programme.

Helping to empower local communities they installed 21 solar powered LED streetlights within the informal settlements (sometimes referred to as slums) of Freetown. Collaborating with 10 local artists to create light sculptures around ARISE themes of safety, education, work, play, and pride, the sculptures were paraded through Freetown as part of a streetlighting opening ceremony.

A documentary film has been made by Cinematica Media. This documentary film describing the journey of this project will form part of a new large scale arts installation that is currently in development. Find out more….

Crossings

Crossings is a new installation artwork by Luke Jerram in collaboration with BBC Radio4 producer Julian May, which was commissioned by Compton Verney for presentation during summer 2022.

The installation consists of 9 rowing boats on the water. Each of the boats plays audio of stories from around the world. In choosing a story and rowing out into the water for 30 minutes participants are taken on an audio journey, transported to another life and circumstance.

The artwork is now touring to other venues to be presented in lakes, canals and docklands across the UK. Contact us if your organisation is interested in presenting this artwork.