Homo Photosyntheticus Lab's Co-Lead Maya Minder's art work MICUL MICUL(Slippery Slippery)
MICUL MICUL (Slippery Slippery) – webart and participatory workshops
With Micul Micul (meaning slipper slippery in Korean language), the artist created a web art project that invites users to submit new recipes for eating seaweed. Since seaweed consumption has long been an indigenous practice, much of the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) surrounding it is at risk of being lost—or has already disappeared. The homepage aims to invent new recipes that respond to a globalized food system, opening up critical possibilities for how we think about food consumption. The Micul Micul project serves as a platform for participatory workshops.
Developed using hypertext programming and inspired by early 1990s net art, Minder’s webart project encourages users to create and share fusion recipes centered on seaweed cuisine. The programming was developed following a workshop at Antre Peaux.
At the end of 2022 Maya Minder was nominated Ambassador of the Vitaly Swiss program – on the road to World Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai of the Embassy of Switzerland in Japan and the Micul Micul project was supported and co-funded by this program. Several workshops were organized in Japan, including Food Lab Osaka and University of Creativity Tokyo (2023) and Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of the “Dancing With All: Ecology of Empathy” exhibition and program (2024-2025).
The highlight of the Micul Micul project and culinary recipes collected so far was presented at a dinner performance and conference performance (‘Slippery Grounds’) for the large public at the major event ‘Amazonies Spatiales’ at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie in Paris on 26 April 2024. Organised by Matrice.io in collaboration with the European Space Agency, this programme aimed to foster new imaginations around the European vision of space and released a book that day with 15 writers contributions. Among the many guests were former astronaut and French Minister of Science Claudie Haigneré and former Member of Parliament for French Guiana and Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira. The Homo Photosyntheticus Lab also presented some of the interviews from its knowledge base conducted at the European Space Agency at ESTEC in Noordwick (NL) and at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The culinary performance orchestrated by Maya Minder and produced by ART2M in collaboration with Matrice also featured Japanese artist Lei Saito and culinary designers Fransisca Tan and Romain Descombes.
screenshot of webart MICUL MICUL, courtesy of Maya Minder.