The last time I visited the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London I was roughly eight years old, on a school trip to its famous palm house, which is something of a British landmark. This time around it was for something quite different: Tutti Frutti, a summer installation by “architectural foodsmiths” Bompas and Parr (known for their crazy Jell-O creations). The installation is part of Kew Gardens’ summer-long festival, IncrEdibles, which celebrates the astounding diversity of edible plants.
To create this grand, fruity spectacular, Bompas and Parr collaborated with and curated work by other artists, including one of our favorite London-based designers, Kit Neale—who designed the artwork as well as fruit-print uniforms for those working on the installation—and sound artist Mileece Petre, whose work enables plants to respond to human touch with music. The centerpiece was a floating pineapple island.
I caught up with Kit, as well as Sam Bompas, one half of Bompas and Parr, to speak about the inspiration behind Tutti Frutti, musical plants, and Sam's obsession with pineapples.
Shop all Kit Neale here | Photos by Harry Carr
Kit Neale
Eloise Moran: Hi Kit! How did you get involved with Tutti Frutti?
Kit Neale: Sam Bompas started harassing us by e-mail, asking if we wanted to work with him, and we were like "Yay!"
How have you enjoyed working with fruit prints?
There's always a food element in a Kit Neale collection—whether it's lobsters, turnips, or fish and chips. So it was actually really easy. My team got to go through the Kew archives and library, and the volume of material that Kew had saved over the years was incredible. There were all these great images, which we scanned, and “mentaled up” a bit!
What's your favorite part of the installation?
I just did what I was most excited about: the boat ride across the Tutti Frutti lake [the Kew boating lake has been dyed deep turquoise!]. I'm also excited about the banana-flavored mist in the banana cove, and Mileece's plants, which communicate sound through touch—it’s like something from Avatar!
Sam Bompas
Eloise Moran: How did you come up with the idea for the installation?
Sam Bompas: It’s the culmination of months and years of research and obsession, with Kew Gardens and with fruit—primarily pineapples. When I heard about Kew's edible plant series over the summer, we knew there was only one thing to do: turn the lake outside the iconic palm house into a vast fruit salad boating lake and create a floating pineapple island with a secret banana grotto (which is like entering banana-y hyperspace). We tried around 30 banana flavorings before we found the one we wanted.
How has it been working with Kit?
It started very serendipitously. I read an article about him and had even ripped it out, then my girlfriend came home later and said she'd met him that same day! All the signs were pointing in the same direction, so we had to do Tutti Frutti together.
Sounds like a perfect match!
It couldn't have been better. We started talking to Kew, and then entered their archive. When we found out that they have over 2000 illustrations Kit's eyes just lit up: 2000 copyright-free illustrations, done by the most amazing botanical artists! He was very excited
To create this grand, fruity spectacular, Bompas and Parr collaborated with and curated work by other artists, including one of our favorite London-based designers, Kit Neale—who designed the artwork as well as fruit-print uniforms for those working on the installation—and sound artist Mileece Petre, whose work enables plants to respond to human touch with music. The centerpiece was a floating pineapple island.
I caught up with Kit, as well as Sam Bompas, one half of Bompas and Parr, to speak about the inspiration behind Tutti Frutti, musical plants, and Sam's obsession with pineapples.
Shop all Kit Neale here | Photos by Harry Carr
Kit Neale
Eloise Moran: Hi Kit! How did you get involved with Tutti Frutti?
Kit Neale: Sam Bompas started harassing us by e-mail, asking if we wanted to work with him, and we were like "Yay!"
How have you enjoyed working with fruit prints?
There's always a food element in a Kit Neale collection—whether it's lobsters, turnips, or fish and chips. So it was actually really easy. My team got to go through the Kew archives and library, and the volume of material that Kew had saved over the years was incredible. There were all these great images, which we scanned, and “mentaled up” a bit!
What's your favorite part of the installation?
I just did what I was most excited about: the boat ride across the Tutti Frutti lake [the Kew boating lake has been dyed deep turquoise!]. I'm also excited about the banana-flavored mist in the banana cove, and Mileece's plants, which communicate sound through touch—it’s like something from Avatar!
Sam Bompas
Eloise Moran: How did you come up with the idea for the installation?
Sam Bompas: It’s the culmination of months and years of research and obsession, with Kew Gardens and with fruit—primarily pineapples. When I heard about Kew's edible plant series over the summer, we knew there was only one thing to do: turn the lake outside the iconic palm house into a vast fruit salad boating lake and create a floating pineapple island with a secret banana grotto (which is like entering banana-y hyperspace). We tried around 30 banana flavorings before we found the one we wanted.
How has it been working with Kit?
It started very serendipitously. I read an article about him and had even ripped it out, then my girlfriend came home later and said she'd met him that same day! All the signs were pointing in the same direction, so we had to do Tutti Frutti together.
Sounds like a perfect match!
It couldn't have been better. We started talking to Kew, and then entered their archive. When we found out that they have over 2000 illustrations Kit's eyes just lit up: 2000 copyright-free illustrations, done by the most amazing botanical artists! He was very excited