Lichen love on Turtle Island

More catching up on delayed reports from the field, here a glimpse into Society movements on unceded syilx territory in Kelowna, BC, a couple of years back!

Our invitation was from Woodhaven Eco Culture Centre and the University of British Columbia Okanagan’s Faculty of Critical and Creative Studies, to take up the role of international Artist-in-Residence 2090, co-hosted by Astrida Neimanis and their FEELed Lab, a collaborative and interdisciplinary feminist environmental humanities lab. Over one high summer month, the Society made contact with local lichen enthusiasts, naturalist groups and scientists, experimented with baking lichen bread, toured sites of special significance, and conducted a weekend field trip to Edgewood Blue, Clearwater (below), to meet renowned lichenologist and Co-curator of Lichens at the Herbarium of UBC Vancouver, Trevor Goward. A baby bear living in the nature park with us also paid us some unexpected visits!

The residency ended with an afternoon lichen love poetry workshop, held in the Society’s makeshift log cabin HQ at Woodhaven. This involved hanging out together with local lichen communities, a spectra-link intervention from Goward, and collaboratively-writing a set of ’tanka’ love poems (to lichen) that will one day be collected into a printed anthology.

Big thank you to our hosts at Woodhaven, FEELed Lab, Astrida, Trevor & Curtis, Nico, and everyone who participated in the workshop or just dropped in for a cup of tea. We hope to return soon!

Stay tuned also for Summer Bulletin 2090, currently in the works.

Regenerative Futures foray on Isosaari

Our 2092 Annual Field Trip + Picnic was another low-key, surprise affair, happening as part of the EASA (European Architecture Students’ Assembly) Rhizome ‘Regenerative Futures’ camp gathering on Isosaari, a once-abandoned island off Helsinki, now home to a cutting-edge lichen-led research station. Our offering kicked off the month of activities being held on Isosaari, a reunion of sorts for all the folk at EASA. Beginning with a silent walk to a particularly lovely lichen field, members and guests then enjoyed a guided meditation based on Cosmic Weathering, before some speculative exploring with local lichen communities. Many thanks to co-conspirator Augustas Lapinskas of Space Nursing and all of EASA for inviting and hosting us.


watch out for space eggs!


Amateur lichenologists at work in the field

 

Therolinguistics Reading Group has arrived!

Hei hei dear readers,

We are woefully behind on blog updates, but wanted to jump in regardless and say.. moikka! The Society happily finds itself back in the Octo-biozone for another summer of lichenous research activities, ensconced at Saari Residence this time with co-conspirator Aliisa Talja to develop our Therolinguistics reading Group. We are baking sourdough bread, getting to know local lichen communities, talking to the sheep, picking berries and cherries and mushrooms, and of course reading a lot of things together and apart in ordinary and curious ways. Some areas of special interest include: the history and practice of therolinguistics, experimental translation, cultures of knowing micro-organisms, earth languages and relational ontologies, fieldwork, biospheres, climate undoing and paradigm shifts… Give us a wave if you’re also passing through the zone!

   

   

 

 

 

 

Outdoor Sauna Reading with Kitchen Lab Tarvo

The Photosynth Social Club’s ‘Summer Beat Camp’ has just wrapped up in Helsinki (full report forthcoming) and to celebrate we are taking part in a semi-public Outdoor Sauna Reading broadcast event of lichen summer camp-related material drawn from the spectacular home library of our hosts Kitchen Lab Tarvo, today JUNE 11, 18:00-20:00 EEST. And there will be sauna of course!

More info at Kitchen Lab & you can tune in directly via {Open Radio} here

 

‘Fabricating Frequencies’: Sounding Out Cosmic LiKIn with Space-Time Morphologies

The Society released a new mobi-video last month, as part of fellow Society for Social Studies of Science annual conference 4S 2089 ‘Good Relations’. Spotlighting for the first time our Space-Time Fab Lab, an experimental research department within the Metta Verse Mutual Aid Space Program, it’s called ‘Fabricating Frequencies: Sounding Out Cosmic LiKIn with Space-Time Morphologies‘ and works as a kind of operatic instructional guide to prepare lichen lovers for participating in an upcoming Special Transmission. More details on that will be announced, in time, via the usual portals. Meanwhile you can all watch and sing along to the video here.

flummery

flummery is both a fluffy 17th-19th century dessert pudding, and a load of nonsense.

‘It’s not the age of reason … it’s the era of flummery, and the day of the devious approach’ –Trouble with Lichen (1960)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flummery

some incredible specimens here
http://www.historicfood.com/Jellies.htm

& a little on isinglas (swim bladders of sturgeon) which were a common ingredient in flummery
https://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/news/weird-ingredient-wednesday-isinglass-or-why-your-guinness-has-fish-it-0161766/

Yellow Flummery

a pretty basic recipe here, using berries https://permaculture.com.au/davidson-plum-rainforest-flavours-in-the-kitchen/

https://1tess.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/blueberry-gems/ 
https://books.google.lt/books?id=uCRdqi4lvK8C&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=blueberry+flummery&source=bl&ots=edOyqufQi6&sig=PMLJOx7XcWqKqtV8xYPuiGvQRNQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMx5Cfz9jbAhXBDywKHQ1lCmwQ6AEIazAO#v=onepage&q=blueberry%20flummery&f=false

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/2i8iz3ay/blueberry-flummery.html