Upstream Algae Shopping Spree by Team B

Presenting the team

Coming from different artistic backgrounds (painting, performance, photography), we are united as a group of artists by an interest in experimental, shared learning. This is in relation to different aspects of nature and human influence, connecting with situations, people and places and stimulating a collective process from which a shared space of experience and creation emerges. We believe in the power of change processes of a political nature also through the possibilities of artistic ways of thinking and acting.

  • Carolin Seeliger
  • Daniel Kupferberg 
  • Kathrin Köster

Presenting the idea

For the Ocean Future Lab we want to make plastic bags from algae. By organizing workshops we want to make algae bags with local, mixed-age groups, stimulating conversations about consumption, the ocean and climate change. Creating plastic-like bags from a natural resource will show possible usages of new sustainable materials, circularity and at the same time a new way of consuming – without feeling shameful. As with the use of these new bags one can do something beneficial and transformative: one can use them later as fertilizer, eat them, or throw them back into the sea.

Through participation, our workshop participants can experience hands-on and low-tech hacks by an artistically changed perception of everyday objects. Furthermore, we imagine a society where the economy moves beyond the current one-way production (e.g. circular society). Waste and polluting materials could be avoided – especially plastic garbage, which has a very long decomposition time of hundreds of years.

The “Upstream Algae Shopping Spree” workshop and collective performance project is just one example of how we propose to deal with challenges regarding the future, but in an active and (importantly!) a joyful way.

Stage of development

We would like to tackle the problems of being concerned by the pollution of the oceans due to human influence, resulting in shame and paralysis. We (conceptually, both with humor and earnestness) aim to bridge a gap between the overwhelming human (plastic) waste problem, and finding solutions for more sustainability.

We would like to experience new ways of thinking and creating collectively, without limitations of contemporary logics, and/but in an artistically free space. Following up on this, we would very much appreciate working together with scientists and developers by starting to transform ideas into concrete applications, products or ways of producing. For the work with the material we would like to cooperate with AWI, an experts group who are doing research on algae as a packaging material.

It is our goal to establish cooperation with scientists in the field of new materials, with our focus on the transfer between the art context and personal experience.

For more information:

www.instagram.com/traces.group

If you want to meet this team to accelerate the idea – come and join us at the Ocean Future Lab Hackathon, Sept- 21-23, 2022.