Welcome Drinks (For Nowhereisland), 2011
Nowhereisland Open Meeting event, Plymouth Arts Centre
A series of bespoke, island themed cocktails to welcome Nowhereisland, in collaboration with a team of mixologists. The Batter Street studio at Plymouth Arts Centre was transformed into an intimate cocktail bar with smartly dressed cocktail waiters and trained mixologists. A text piece accompanying the performance was printed on coasters in the space, and as the evening progressed rings from glasses left a physical trace of the event on the coasters.
Each cocktail, or artwork, was titled after an event or notion that related to Nowhereisland in some way:
1. Ny Oppdagelsen (4 lemon juice, 5 gin, 2 gomme, 2 blue curacao)
Translates as 'New Discovery' in norwegian.
2. Project Habbakuk (3 pineapple, 3 lime, 6 rum, 1 gomme, 1 orgeat)
A failed plan by the British in WW2 to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice), thus creating artificial ice-islands.
3. Islomania (12 Apple juice, 2 Vanilla gomme, 2 Lemon juice)
A craze for or a strong attraction to islands.The condition was first identified by Lawrence Durrell in his book Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953).
(Nowhereisland was a large scale contemporary art commission and the winning project of Artists Taking the Lead for the South West England, part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. Led by artist Alex Hartley and produced with Situations, at the University of the West of England, Bristol.)
