Contributors
SASi is a multidisciplinary network of seaweed enthusiasts exploring the potential for seaweed through an art/science lens. Alongside these contributors, there are a group of members engaged in sharing and building knowledge.
Lichen Kelp
SASi founder and steward, Lichen Kelp is an artist, curator and DIY marine biologist. Her practice is most often situated in the aquatic realm and encompasses performance chemistry, photography, sculpture and curation. She performs with Kelping and runs Forum of Sensory Motion with partner Dylan Martorell. FSM held artist residencies and exhibitions in India in 2014 and 2016 and Greece in 2017. Lichen curated a trilogy of artist road trips to Whyalla, South Australia in 2018 and 2019 to witness the mating displays of the Giant Cuttlefish aggregation. In 2019 Lichen curated MULCH; a performance event for Ian Potter Foundation and established the Seaweed Appreciation Society international (SASi), a mobile experimental platform dedicated to the artistic research of marine algae. In her studio and live performances, she works with scientific principles of experimentation, colour chemistry and chemical reactions to investigate the materiality of process, replicating changing weather patterns and reimagining nature. Fluid and subversive experiments and performances arise and result in submersive liquid paintings combining bubbling solutions and localised flora. Otherworldly landscapes created by domestic ingredients and a lurid botanical palette disrupt our notions of beauty and the (un)natural.
Read: On a Floating World interview with Lichen Kelp
Jess Cockerill
Jess Cockerill is a multimedia artist, writer and creative producer based in Naarm (Melbourne, AU) whose projects explore the ecstasy and tension of interspecies connections.
Jess grew up near Mudurup (coastal Cottesloe, Western Australia), where their affinity with the ocean and its neighbouring ecosystems began. This fascination with the intertidal zone continues to leak into all aspects of their work.
Jess first became involved with SASi in 2021, creating a new logo for the society to embody the relationship between algae and artist. Their video collage fathoms (chlorophyta / phaeophyceae / rhodophyta) featured in the Ocean Portal group exhibition in August, 2021. Jess has continued to work with Lichen on digital design and writing for SASi.
Jess’s background in journalism, digital media and ecology is reflected in their interdisciplinary approach to creative practice, which spans video, animation, drawing, printmaking, installation, writing and design.
By traversing analogue and digital mediums, Jess disturbs the boundaries between nature and culture, subjects and objects, sea and shore.
**Links to related writing**
Hauntology on Country by Jess Cockerill
LCL (exhibition text for 'Tough and Tender') by Jess Cockerill
In the wake of a leviathan by Jess Cockerill
Luca Lana
Luca Lana is a registered architect, lecturer and founder of Q Studios with a focus on queer urban spaces. In 2018 he designed and fabricated a portable sauna launched at MPavillion Monash. In 2020 Lichen and Luca collaborated on a design for The Algalsphere; a seaweed bath and public artwork that combines SASi’s algae awareness raising with the alchemical, experiential nature of Lichen’s work and Luca’s architectural investigation of public bathing.
Mathew Bate
Mathew Bate is the former co-editor of Melbourne-based publication Matters Journal, where he told stories of sustainability, making a positive impact and the need for responsible business. His poetry has been published in Cordite Poetry Review, and his creative nonfiction has featured in Dumbo Feather, Matters Journal and Gippslandia. He has recently had a children’s book published with Thames and Hudson about the history of marine algae and its future role in climate change mitigation. The book is called called With a Little Kelp From Our Friends. He is currently studying regenerative agriculture at Southern Cross University, the first degree of its kind in the world.
Mat is also a proud and active contributor to the Seaweed Appreciation Society International. In August 2019 Mat was invited by Lichen to take part in her residency program, Forum of Sensory Motion, on FLOAT in Lake Tyers.
Chris Rockley
Chris runs foraging workshops to teach identification and empathy to the natural world. She has an interest in ethnobotany and looks at the uses of seaweeds and weeds in the kitchen and garden. Connecting people to their local natural environment.
Danni Zuvela
Danni Zuvela is a curator, creative producer and writer, originally from Brisbane, now living in the Gold Coast. Her interest in experimental practice is informed by her academic training, particularly her research and theoretical background, and manifests across her projects and activities. Instrumental in helping to establish the Seaweed Appreciation Society in Melbourne, Danni has since relocated and continues her deep investigations into marine algae from her coastal home.
Jessie French
Jessie French is an artist, speculative designer, urban strategist, beekeeper and curator currently studying history and philosophy of science. She is a founding member SASI and her emerging artistic practice explores symbiosis, ecology, science and technology in the context of human experience during this time of human-driven environmental crisis, currently focused around exploratory experimentation with algae-based bioplastics.
In 2019, Lichen and Jessie undertook the first project under the Biomutualism name to investigate the materiality of seaweeds. In early 2020, they traveled to Morocco for the La Pause residency in the Agafay Desert, outside of Marrakech, where they setup a studio and conducted research into the sustainability of agar harvesting and production, visiting key sites along the coast. This residency concluded in an exhibition, Seaweed Future: Red Gold, held in Marrakech late-February 2020. Back in Melbourne, Jessie continues to work with agar, exploring the possibilities of bioplastic with Other Matter.