JULY 2016 -

From the Rakett Archive #6

03_t.shroom07_web
Photo: Anu Vahtra

Rakett presents: The T-shroom Project
a collaboration with curator Karin Lansoo, 2004, Bergen.

Certain studies indicate that even some twenty years back, tea mushroom was found in one out of three kitchens in that time’s Soviet union. The jellyfish-like creature used to inhabit three-litre jar and ensured a year-round supply of homemade beverage. T-shroom usually was either passed from one generation to the next as a family heritage or it was acquired as a gift from friends. Therefore it took up a place in the household hierarchy equivalent to a family member’s or a pet’s. (From the T-shroom handouts)

Together with Lansoo, Rakett brought parts of the T-shroom project to Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen in April 2004. T-shroom is originally a project that had several arms and legs, the multimedia project: Tea Mushroom Shop in Riga, the tea mushroom’s advertisement campaign in conjunction to this shop and the development of a Tea Mushroom Growers’ Association circular. In Bergen the one-evening-only consisted of a T-shroom tasting bar where Rakett and Lansoo were informing the visitors on the nutritious effects from the drink made of Kombucha culture. The evening was accompanied with screening of the documentary The Tea Mushroom Katrina Neiburga and live concert by BAP (Ott Kaguvere & Lilli-Krööt Repna) from Tallinn, Estonia.