Breadfruit: Recipes of a Recalcitrant Seed

The recipes are shared in Madeleine Collie’s Follow the Plants text “To Mutiny for Life: Against the Violence of the Plantationocene.”

The workshop builds on Nathalie Muchamad’s growing archive of breadfruit as both an agroecological agent and an intimate ingredient for communities in tropical climates. Breadfruit will be brought from South London markets by book contributors to be steamed, fried and roasted as we share stories of colonial crossings, global adaptations and acts of resistance. Known as ʻulu in the Pacific and sukun in Indonesia, Artocarpus altilis carries a complex history of human movement. Grown and farmed on islands across the Pacific and Indian Oceans the plant was introduced to the Caribbean and elsewhere through colonial botanical networks, as it became entangled with plantation economies imposed as diet for enslaved people, and was famously associated with the Mutiny on the Bounty appearing in several movies of the story.

Together, we will follow the plant through its histories of trade, displacement, and resistance, asking how this plant has become a witness to colonial histories while also offering possibilities for food sovereignty, collective survival and regeneration.

Access: The venue HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme is on the island of Suomenlinna, about a 15-minute walk from the ferry pier. The island is accessible by a ferry departing every 20 minutes from Kauppatori (Market Square) and the travel time from Kauppatori to HIAP is approximately 25 minutes. Find the HSL ferry timetable here. The walking route from Suomenlinna ferry platform to HIAP Gallery Augusta & Project Space can be found here.

There is a step at the HIAP’s main entrance and no power-assisted door. The HIAP toilets are not wheelchair-accessible. Accessible toilets can be found on five different locations on the island indicated on this map. The closest one to the HIAP Studios is located in the Summer Theatre (building nr 36 on the Suomenlinna visitors’ map).

This event is a collaboration between Bioart Society, Food Art Research Network and HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme.

Image: Portrait of Nathalie Muchamad. Photo by Séverine Fernandes, Ville de Malakoff