New V&A food exhibition to serve insect pâté and cheese made with celebrities’ bacteria

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Robert Dex @RobDexES23 January 2019

Cheese grown from human bacteria and mushrooms fertilised with discarded coffee grounds from its own cafe feature in a new V&A exhibition about the future of food.

The work of chefs, farmers, scientists and artists are all in Food: Bigger than the Plate, which opens later this year.

Among the exhibits will be three cheeses created by artists Christina Agapakis and Sissel Tolaas from bacteria gathered from an as yet un-named trio of celebrities.

The pair gather bacteria with swabs from the hands, feet, noses and armpits of people and then use them to inoculate milk before making the cheese.

They previously made cheese from part of one of David Beckham’s football boots which was served at the opening of the London 2012 Olympics. Mushrooms grown in the gallery using coffee grounds will be served in the museum Benugo cafe as an example of the “circular economy”, while edible water bottles made from seaweed extract will be on display and available to buy.

Designer Carolien Niebling has teamed up with a butcher and a chef to create a range of more sustainable sausages including fruit salami and insect pâté.

Also on display will be dozens of objects from the V&A’s own collection including early examples of advertising and ceramics, while artists from the Fallen Fruit collective have been commissioned to make a huge 12-metre squared wallpaper inspired by the museum’s exhibits and the history of its Kensington site, once used as a nursery for fruit trees.

Co-curators Catherine Flood and May Rosenthal Sloan said the new show would use the story of food to examine “society, culture and pleasure” and “how we determine our relationship with the natural world”.

They added: “In an era of major ecological challenges, fast-changing societies and technological re-invention, now is a crucial moment to ask not just what will we be eating tomorrow, but what kind of food future do we want? What could it look like? And taste like?”

They say the exhibition will explore food as “rich ground for citizenship, subversion and celebration.”

Food: Bigger than the Plate runs from May 18 to October 20.

Exhibitions to look forward to in 2019

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