The Truvia Voyage of Discovery Selfridges Roof, London, July 2011
Bompas & Parr flooded part of Selfridges roof to create a crystal island and boating lake in celebration of the impending UK arrival of Truvia® calorie-free sweetener, from the stevia leaf. The Truvia® Voyage of Discovery invited visitors to enjoy their first experience of the Truvia® brand and their first introduction to the stevia plant, astonishingly 200 times sweeter than sugar.
The project encompassed an emerald green boating lake, thousands of stevia plants, 12 rowing boats, a gushing waterfall, a life guard, cocktails by ECC, design by Studio Toogood, uniforms by Tour de Force, tropical soundscapes by Dom James, teas by Rare Tea Company, coffees by Caravan, and a Crystal Island -
all six storeys above Londons busiest shopping street.
Photographs: 2-5,13: Beth Evans, 6,7,9-10: Nathan Pask ,11: Nick Westby, 1, 8,12,14: Ann Charlott Ommedal, 15-16: James Loveday
Art Experiment - Garage Centre of Contemporary Culture Moscow, December 2011
Bompas & Parr hosted three installations at the Garage Centre of Contemporary Culture which focused on generating compelling sensory experiences.
The Neuroesthetic Nose - Bompas & Parr worked with a neuroscientist to pair micro-encapsulated aromas with specific colors. The micro-encapsulated scents were incorporated into corresponding paints which visitors used to depict a flocked still life. Once the paintings dried the aromas were released on touch allowing creators to smell the colour of their composition.
Russian Scratch n Sniff Cinema - Russian animations were re-presented by incorporating the usually neglected sense of smell into the Cinematic experience through the medium of Scratch n Sniff cards.
Surrealist Biscuit Factory - The surrealists took a powerful interest in food as an emotive subject to provoke, beguile and intrigue. Bompas & Parr drew inspiration from Salvador Dalís cookbook Les Dinners de Gala to build a Surrealist Biscuit Factory where food was used creatively to make edible art.
Photography: Sam Bompas
Protein Perfection London, December 2011
To celebrate the launch of 'I want Muscle' a bodybuilding film by Elisha Smith-Leverock we created the Protein Perfection Cocktail a protein shake that intoxicates while supporting muscle growth. The film provides a glimpse into the world of Kizzy Vaines, a female bodybuilder. She is the only British competitor for the Olympia Fitness title in Las Vegas. You can watch it here.
The cocktails use Kizzy Vaines' preferred brand of protein shake, Health Science Nutrition, as the cornerstone of a turbo-charged eggnog. The film was made possible with the help of Creature London, KnockKnock and Stamp London.
Photography: 1: Ann Charlott Ommedal, 2-5: Justin Brown
Visionary Feast - London Design Festival Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel London, September 2011
On 20th September Bompas & Parr and Martin Scholz (head chef of Catch) hosted
a Visionary Feast and screening of Alejandro Jodorowsky's cult film Holy Mountain. This is one of the Secret Sensory Suppers curated by Franklin Till within the Masonic Temple of the Andaz hotel. The film includes tarot, alchemists, limbless dwarves,
a cemetery party and frogs dressed as mayan princes.
The food for the Visionary Feast was inspired by the film and grand hotel cookery of the 1970's. Guests drank from a specially commissioned loving cup by jeweller Maud Traon before the presentation of a processional phallus made of ice. The menu incorporated figurative food drawn directly from the film and architectural space and included hand reared frogs.
Photography: 1-3: Mischa Haller, 4-6: Ann Charlott Ommedal
Dining with Alice Elsing Hall, Norfolk, May 2011
A theatrical dinner adventure conceived and directed by Hilary Westlake with creative company Artichoke. Bompas & Parr provided a four course Victorian feast for 2,304 people that culminated with dessert served on a floating pontoon in the middle of Elsing Halls moat. Over the course of the production 8.1 tonnes of cutlery was hand washed and 576 Holkham beef pies cooked and served.
Photography: Ann Charlott Ommedal
Chocolate Waterfall Whiteleys Shopping Centre, London, April 2011
Bompas & Parr built a five tonne Chocolate Waterfall in London pulling together
their favorite beans from around the world to create their first house blend.
Visitors donned a protective suit before visiting a chocolate waterfall flowing at
a rate of 12,000 litres per hour before bottling their own chocolate elixir to take
away. Dr Rachel Edwards-Stuart, food technologist and flavour expert helped develop the recipe.
Photographs: Ann Charlott Ommedal
Rabbit Cafe Churchill Square, Brighton, April 2011
The Rabbit Café was populated by a colony of albino rabbits. Visitors ate
Easter-based snacks, petted the rabbits and learnt about animal husbandry
from a qualified vet. The haptic sense of touch (not normally addressed
in the dining context) was directly and overtly stimulated by the installation.
Dirt Banquet Crossness Pumping Station, Wellcome Collection Dirt Season, April 2011
For the Dirt Banquet on 2nd April, Guerrilla Science and Bompas & Parr hosted a meal exploring the culinary implications of dirt at Crossness Pumping Station, the Victorian cathedral to sewage. Diners ate four courses and experienced a brown note sat between Crossnesss four, 52 tonne pumps designed by Joseph Balgazette.
Photographs: 2,3,7,11: Mike Massaro,
1,4-6,8-10,12: Ann Charlott Ommedal
Pancake Magic London, March 2011
Photography: 1: Nathan Pask, 2-4: Ann Charlott Ommedal
Taste O Rama Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, March 2011
Guests were taken on a choreographed adventure through the underground
rooms of Welbeck Abbey before watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom presented in Taste 'o' Rama - with spectators able to enjoy key moments of the movie with their mouths. The experience was enhanced by dancers from Detail Dance and performances from the students of Dukeries college. The menu explored food taboos with insight provided by Prof. Harry West of SOAS
Photographs: 5-7, 9-10: Matthew Andrews
1-4, 8, 11-16: Ann Charlott Ommedal
Last Suppers Remastered with Intel and Jotta, March 2011
Everyone has a last supper waiting for them. For Jottas exhibition with Intel Bompas & Parr recreated and photographed some of the most memorable last suppers including the Chatreuse jellies served on the Titanic, Mitterands ortolan feast and the single un-pitted olive eaten by Death Row inmate Robert Buell in the hope that an olive tree would sprout from his body.
Visit Remastered to see more
Photographs: 1-3: Ann Charlott Ommedal
4-5: Intel / Jotta
Lanvin Cake for AnOther Magazine Selfridges, February 2011
Lanvin and Bompas & Parr created a revolving cake so large it involved half
a tonne of Tate & Lyle sugar and performer Theo Adams bursting out of it.
Hypnotic Shop Browns Focus, London Fashion Week, February 2011
The Hypnotic Shop used hypnotic techniques to touch peoples subconscious and make them buy. The installation was developed in association with hypnosis experts, academics and psychologists. It used hypnotic visuals, cleaning products spiked with TasteTechs micro-encapsulated aromas and powerful subliminal messaging to influence customers purchasing pattern. Hypnotic Shop operated as an experiment in which customers were the unwilling participants.
Celestial Bed The Museum of London, Valentines Day 2011
and magnetism from Benjamin Franklin, Graham established himself as a sex therapist to London Society. Graham thought that the effect of static electricity to make hair stand on end proved that it had the power to make any part of the body erect. He claimed that fluids would spurt more vigorously from charged bodies.
Illustration by Emma Rios
For Valentines Day 2011 Bompas & Parr recreated James Grahams notorious 1782 Celestial Bed. Visitors were invited to make love in the museum and drink a love philter which incorporated phenyethlyeamine, yohimbine and 23 secret ingredients.
Dr James Graham (1745-1794) was a medical entrepreneur, quack and pioneer in sex therapy with a genius for spectacle. Having learnt the principles of electricity
Artisanal Chewing Gum Factory Whiteleys Shopping Centre, October 2010
Bompas & Parr built an Artisanal Chewing Gum Factory at Whiteleys Shopping Centre. Visitors learnt the secrets of chewing gum manufacture at the worlds first micro-factory.
Each guest was able to choose and combine 200 familiar and unusual flavours including iris, white truffle, tonic, curry and beer yeast. In total 40,000 flavour combinations were possible including gums that changed flavour when chewed.
Le Hollandais Architecture Association, December 2010
A feast for the Architecture Association taking inspiration from the food and restaurant of Peter Greenaways The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.
The meal was cooked and served from the AAs art gallery.
Photographs: 3, 6-7: Valerie Bennett
1-2, 5-6:Ann Charlott Ommedal
YCN Student Awards Shoreditch Town Hall, September 2010
Bompas & Parr created a three-course spectacle for the YCN awards dinner that included a recreation of Emperor Vespasians notorious Shield of Minerva dish.
Photographs: YCN
Sugar Cave London Fashion Week, September 2010
For London Fashion Week Bompas & Parr created a Jules Verne adventure using sugar as an architectural scale alongside art directors Emma Rios and Cecilia Carey. Silver Spoon sugar was used to build a crystal cave that imagined the visitor had been shrunk to the size of a standard grain of table sugar (0.3-0.5 mm)
Ziggurat of Flavour Big Chill Festival, August 2010
The Ziggurat of Flavour was a pyramidal art installation containing a cloud of breathable fruit where visitors contributed to their five-a-day by breathing. After negotiating a vertical labyrinth of vaporized Fairtrade fruit, visitors emerged onto a grand slide at the top of the structure. The Ziggurat of Flavour drew inspiration from 18th Century Cuccagna monuments. These formed the centerpieces for the most spectacular public celebrations in history.
They were vast architectural structures made of food based on the peasant tale of the Land of Cockaigne; a mythical place with mountains of cheese, rainstorms of cake and where all wildlife was pre-cooked and waiting to be eaten.
Photographs: 1: Jules Stobart, 7: Mark Sethi
6: Matt Farrow, 2-5, 8-13: Ann Charlott Ommedal
The Complete History of Food Belgrave Square, July 2010
An edible epic so grand, so magnificent, and so vast, it spans 730 years
A walk-through dining experience and multi-course meal charting key periods in food history. Visitors traveled through time eating and drinking food from London's top restaurants. Food eras covered include Medieval, Renaissance, Victorian and the contemporary scene. The installation included a flooded dining-room with live eels in the water, a recreation of the 1853 Iguanodon Dinner, meat Ferrero Rocher and the world's first bio-responsive food.
Photographs: 2-3, 5, 11: Beth Evans. 6, 8-9: Dan Price. 1, 6-7, 10, 12-15 : Ann Charlott Ommedal
300 Dish Elizabethan Dessert Banquet Kenilworth Castle, June 2010
Inspired by the majestic dessert banquet served to Queen Elizabeth I at Kenilworth in 1575 we created an elaborate 300 dish dessert banquet in the restored Elizabethan gardens. Sugar sculptures of the garden's aviary; bear and staff motif; and central fountain were created using an array of specially produced moulds.
