A new flavour-filled exhibition is teasing tastebuds at the Nanaimo Art Gallery. After Wrappers is a collaboration between artists Hannah Jickling, Reed H. Reed, guest artists and elementary school students in East Vancouver and Dawson City in the Yukon.
The exhibit centres around two main projects. One is when the artists and children came up with new flavours that embraced the kids’ love of sour candy and mixed it with high-quality dark chocolate made by East Van Roasters to create a Sour Vs. Sour chocolate bar in 2016. The other is an updated version of the creation which combined dark chocolate with real fruit when the children were in high school.
“It’s really interesting to have these flavor combinations that you normally wouldn’t experience,” said gallery curator Jesse Birch.
Edible editions of chocolate bars merge flavours for kids and adults
Birch said the idea for the Sour Vs. Sour chocolate bar came from students at Queen Alexandra Elementary in East Vancouver.
“The kids would have Warhead candies that were extremely sour and there was this idea that the kids owned that flavour, it’s not a flavour for adults, it’s for kids,” he explained.
Birch said the idea was to combine the sour flavour of Nerds with dark chocolate — a flavour that adults like — and create what they call an “edible edition” of small-run specialty chocolate bars.
A short film that documents the chocolate making process also plays in the video room of the gallery and playfully combines sound from the factory with improvised sound effects by the children.
“You can hear them making foley sounds like ‘bloop bloop bloop’ when the chocolate drops out and stuff like that,” Birch said.
The bars are displayed in a clear see-through case between the gallery’s main space and the gallery store, bridging the dual existence of them as both an artwork and something that can be bought and consumed.
When the artists first showed up to meet the class in 2016, the teacher, Cindy, was singing Big Rock Candy Mountain and the artists showed up in Jelly Bean costumes, Birch said.
“The idea was that they were going to arrive while they were singing the song, but they came in a little early,” Birch said. “The kids were singing the song and suddenly these people in jelly bean costumes just walked in, and they just had to stand there for the entire duration of the song, and the kids didn’t know what was going on.”
After the song was over the artists explained what was happening and what they wanted to work on with the kids.
“It was a pretty awkward moment, but seems beautiful in an awkward way as well,” Birch said.
Kids imagine unique glass-blown soda bottles
The second major part of the exhibit is Soda Studies, a series of custom glass-blown soda bottles based on drawings from students at Robert Service School on Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in traditional territory in Dawson City, Yukon.
Birch told a story about how the kids went to a museum that had historical bottles from the Gold Rush.
“The kids were really fascinated by these bottles,” he said. “They did a project where they would reach into a bag and touch the bottle and then draw their own version. And then they did another project where they would come up with their own vision of what a really cool bottle would be, and what kind of soda flavor would go into it.”
The bottles were made by glassblower Jesse Bromm of Goodbeast Studios in Vancouver based on the children’s designs. Students were given the opportunity to make small, precious glass objects with hands-on support from Luann Baker-Johnson and Mel Johnson of Lumel Studios Glassblowing. The kids also received a replica copy of the bottle they designed that is on display in the exhibit.
“I feel like the glass blowing was a one-time opportunity as a kid,” said Louphil, one of the students in Dawson City who participated in the program. “You can work together. It’s hard to come by a big art project as a kid. You should spend your time preciously to make it worth it.”
Birch said one aspect of Dawson City is that recycling glass there is a problem as it’s so remote.
“All the garbage comes in, but very little goes out again,” Birch said. “So in relation to this project, they also brought some local people that are working with glass recycling and did some glass blowing with recycled glass.”
Turning candy after wrappers into art
Throughout the gallery there were also prints made from wrappers and garbage that the artists found around the schools where they worked with the kids.
“By making these prints of garbage, they’re changing the idea of how something can be valued,” Birch said. “So in this case, these become aesthetic objects in the gallery context.”
The exhibit can be viewed at the Nanaimo Art Gallery during normal opening hours until July 13. Admission is by donation and a free lunch-time tour of the exhibit happens every Friday at noon. On Sunday, June 1, the gallery is holding a workshop on creating pop-art wrappers inspired by the exhibit.
