Lullabiome: a vision of the future

Tucked away in a corner of the gardening zone of the Great Yorkshire Show is something that looks more like a circus sideshow. What could it possibly have to do with plants? Surprisingly, it is the result of a collaboration between researchers on our Disease Suppressive Microbes project, artist Anthony Bennett and signwriter Ben PMA. The resulting installation, Lullabiome, invites visitors to consider the potential impact of plant diseases and how we might reimagine the future.

What is now Lullabiome began some time ago when project lead Prof Duncan Cameron invited multimedia artist Anthony Bennett to attend research group meetings with a view to creating some science-inspired artworks. Anthony’s approach is to respond to science as it happens, saying “I think about science and scientists the same way that an artist might talk about a muse.” Duncan’s project is researching whether adding beneficial microbes to plants grown in synthetic soils and hydroponic systems might help promote root health and suppress disease. Anthony was particularly inspired by the way that this project is trying to use novel growing techniques and amplify natural processes to feed the growing population. So Lullabiome is about hope for the future, imagining a time when everyone has enough to eat. It draws on and reimagines protective charms, like dream catchers and corn dollies, which originate in folk practices and indigenous cultures.

Virtually everything in the installation is made of clear plastic. This was a very deliberate choice, partly because plastics are so ubiquitous in laboratories. As Anthony explains further “for years and years I’ve made really bright colorful sculptures. But this was so ‘other’ that I wanted to challenge myself, to take all the colour out. I also wanted to use plastics because in the art world at the moment it’s just ‘plastics is bad’ and people ignore the fact that plastic has saved millions of people’s lives”.

Lullabiome includes various sculptural pieces with accompanying music and videos that can be watched online. The central piece is two marionettes in a cot with a larger figure sitting beside them. It represents two well-fed future children being sung to sleep with the soothing sounds of ‘The Growers’ a lullaby wassail and the promise of happy dreams. The marionettes had playful origins, as Anthony explained “the scientists produced some results, that weren’t what they wanted, and they were all miserable. I just wanted to cheer them up. So, I made these marionettes based on Bill and Ben and snuck into the labs where they work without them knowing and did a fun video to cheer them up and it worked.” You can watch the video here.

Around the marionettes are smaller pieces inspired by other elements of the research. There are suspended plastic loops which represent plasmids (circular DNA molecules which can be passed from one bacteria to another) and corn-dolly style charms woven from laboratory tubing.  There is also a totem-like sculpture made from tubing and agricultural buckets, surrounded by fairies made from plastic cutlery. It is about people expecting others to do things to feed them.

A favourite with researcher Dr Jake Nickles was the dream catchers which flip the usual ‘tree of life’ motif to bring the focus onto the roots and the root microbiome. Jake said “when we have a chance to talk to people about our work, they start to see that what we’re looking at is a plant, that the long tendrils are roots, and then the attachments below the roots are the microbiome that’s there, and suddenly it all comes together. And that’s actually a really elegant way visualizing what we’re working on”.

Although everything inside the Lullabiome tent was created by Anthony, the striking circus-sideshow look outside is the work of signwriter Ben PMA. In particular, he created a novel way to start conversations and gather feedback from visitors – a ‘wheel of fortune’ style evaluation board. Ben explained “So every day we have a different question for the top – ‘What’s the best way to treat plant diseases?’, ‘What’s the worst way?’, ‘How are we currently treating plant disease?’ And tomorrow’s question is ‘how will we treat one disease in the future?’ Basically, people walk up. We have a really nice chat, and then they answer today’s question by putting a sticker on the wheel. We’ve color coded the stickers as well so we can break down the data into age groups as well as opinions.”

There was a steady stream of visitors to the Lullabiome tent despite it being in a quieter part of the show – a testament to Ben’s eye-catching signs – and the sculptures and question of the day were raising lots of discussion and debate. Although the installation at the Great Yorkshire Show was a transient one, Lullabiome is likely to reappear at some point with the collaborators looking for other opportunities to show it. For now, you can get a sense of what it was like from this video. You can also visit Anthony’s website for other research-inspired videos created in collaboration with his son Tom Bennett. There is also a YouTube playlist with all the videos.

Although show visitors were important, the most profound impact of this project is on the collaborators themselves. Jake said “It prompts us to talk about what we’ve been working on in a way that actually relates to the real world. And it’s really affected how I speak to people and how I transfer the technical side of things and the jargon in an understandable manner”. And for Anthony the project has helped him find hope. He explains “For years and years now, mass media, art, it’s all been so dystopian, and that’s a problem I think now. We need people to create things for themselves, sing songs of hope. Culture, science, farming, all sorts of practitioners are coming together to create this vision, an imaginative, inspirational thing that just gets people out of this ‘we’re all going to die’ sort of mentality.” And a future where everyone has enough to eat, and we live more in harmony with nature seems like a wonderful thing to hope for.

by Sarah McLusky, Events and Communications Coordinator