CLIMAVORE is a long term artistic research project initiated by the artist duo Cooking Sections. It sets out to envision seasons of food production and consumption that react to climatic events and conservation challenges. The result is a diet that functions as a piece of infrastructure, using edibles as a means of rehabilitating and reimagining nature and agricultural production. CLIMAVORE is conservation that tastes good.

In 2017 and 2018 Cooking Sections are focusing their work on the British coast and the levels of pollution and acidification of the waters surrounding the isles. Through an extensive research process in collaboration with art institutions in coastal and small island communities, ‘CLIMAVORE: The British Seafront’ is working to engage a large network of actors and stakeholders to re-envision our eating habits and aquaculture practices in order to purify the seas and rebuild the biodiversity of the waters surrounding the British Isles. The project focuses on seaweeds, kelp and some bivalve molluscs like mussels, oysters and clams, as crucial agents in the purification of seawater from pollutants and toxins.

Cooking Sections will be meeting with biologists, oceanographers, chemists, marine research institutions, bivalve aquaculture farmers and seaweed producers. The work in progress will be documented into a CLIMAVORE web platform that will become an interlocutor between science, artists, and the general public. From September 2017, Cooking Sections will stage a series of events, bringing together local stakeholders, experts and the general public.

Cooking Sections began their research on the Isle of Skye, working together with Salmon farmers and Atlas Arts. In Jersey they are interested in Oyster, Mussel and Ormer farming, marine management, the ongoing debate surrounding the build up of sea lettuce and the potential of seaweeds as a farmed commodity, revisiting the culinary history of seaweeds in the British Isles as a subsistence economy for the peoples of the coasts.

Cooking Sections will be working with a variety of partners, including the Department of the Environment, the Jersey National Park, Highlands College, local chefs, retailers and a range of aquaculture farmers, marine biologists and conservation groups, including Jersey Sea Farms, Seymour Oysters, Société Jersiaise Marine Biology Section, Jersey Marine Conservation and Save our Shoreline Jersey.

Public events will take the form of dinners convening around a series of dishes that use bivalves and seaweeds, inviting the public and regional farmers, scientists, researchers and governmental officials to come together, taste and discuss the role these foods can gain in the local economy, diet and environmental strategy.