Not Quite California Wonder: Total Seed Bombardment bell pepper design botanical workshop

Fuzzy will take part in the MENÜ imaginaire program series with a collective botanical workshop, called NOT QUITE CALIFORNIA WONDER.

Bell Pepper is a currency of values that is cultivated in micro-sensored labs. This hollow berry is filled with engineered taste, artificial love and hate, man-made colour, geometry and genetic Boogie. It is an all year long harvested yellow delirium and dark red threat.

NOT QUITE CALIFORNIA WONDER engages with the changing fashion of food production and the emerging lack of diversity of crops around the world. We will explore the role of bell pepper over time as plant, food, industry, symbol of political power and ecological catalyst. The workshop is urged by the global insecurity of food production we face today. The project is a continuation of the ongoing research of the Fuzzy collective, Tekla Gedeon and Sebastian Gschanes focusing on Capsicum annuum (bell pepper). Throughout the research, we worked in close collaboration with agricultural engineers, botanists and farmers to uncover alternative perceptions of contemporary agricultural spaces and new ideas of nature.

Together we will learn about the bell pepper’s wild past and it’s rambling way around the world. In doing so, we will expose the entangled, colonial and imperial histories of the plant. The ‘Total Seed Bombardment’ workshop will reveal how capsicum genetics were remodeled and designed over time. Through a collective design activity we will also take part in this breeding process and create new speculative varieties.

The ‘Total Seed Bombardment’ workshop will be in English and it will take place online. If you are interested and you would like to take part in the botanical workshop please, register at hello@fuzzy.earth.

The event is part of the exhibition MENÜ imaginaire that will take place in the framework of OFF-Biennale Budapest 2021.

Fuzzy is a Budapest based arts studio and research practice formed by designers Tekla Gedeon and Sebastian Gschanes. Fuzzy creates spaces, objects and events that explore our relationship with nature and technology. 

IG: fuzzy.earth