Artist Statement

GEOPOLITICS OF MEDIA PUBLIC SPACE PROJECT

The word ‘feral’ denotes a process that is wilfully wild (as in pigeon) as opposed to romantically or naturally-wild (wolf). The passage of goods through feral trade can open up wormholes between diverse social settings and organisations, routes along which other information, techniques or individuals can potentially travel.
The first registered feral trade was conducted in 2003, with the import of 30kg of coffee from the Association Cafetalera de La Paz coffee co-operative in El Salvador to the Cube Microplex cinema co-op in Bristol, UK. The coffee is traded through the UK and Europe via a number of social, cultural, familial and occupational networks.
August 2004: Coffee to Estonia, Inauguration of a new feral trade route connecting Bristol and Tallinn via the distribution of coffee. Freight methods for this route are various, but voluntary product-hitchhiking in the baggage of UK-Tallinn ISEA symposium delegates will be considered.

Route documentation and downloadable coffee packaging can be found at the project website: sparror.cubecinema.com/feraltrade.

• Kate Rich  (UK) is roving reporter and radio engineer with the Bureau  of Inverse Technology (BIT).

Full document (PDF) p. 113