On Friday, some of the W+K Fairtrade team (Dan,
Ray, Katherine and Lucy) made their way, after much anticipation, to see Bompas
and Parr’s mighty ‘Ziggurat of Flavour’: a Big Chill Arts commission and a
collaboration with the Fairtrade Foundation.
The event kicked off Fairtrade’s year-long fruit campaign ‘Power up Your
Fruitbowl’. This will promote awareness of the Fairtrade fruit range and what
it does for the developing world producers who grow it. We created assets for
the festival that we gave out before and during the event: a mini Ziggurat
fruit hamper to invite food bloggers to the Festival plus scratch n sniff fruit
postcards and Fairtrade cotton picnic mats that were given out free once there.

Following a cancelled train, a rail replacement service (held up by Nikki from
Big Brother who needed a toilet stop) and the realisation that we’d brought a
tent with no poles, we finally saw the Ziggurat. A black and white pyramid,
perched on top of the Big Chill hill, containing a cloud of breathable
Fairtrade fruit.

Over the weekend we juiced 2053 oranges by hand, got through 134 kilos of
pineapples and 12 boxes of lemons. These were liquefied, clarified through
reverse osmosis and then transformed into a dense Fairtrade fruit cloud you
could taste. After inhaling some fruity goodness you exit the Ziggurat via a
vertical drop slide – the height of a small house – quickly taking in a
breath-taking panorama of the Herefordshire hills.
Here’s Sam Bompas juicing away.

Inside the glowing Fairtrade fruit cloud.

Extreme sliding

Photo Credit – Matt Farrow of The Magic Hours
Ziggy-Mega-fan Neo, went through the installation and down the slide 101 times
the day it opened.  Hero.

Absorbing vitamins from fruit through your lungs and eyeballs. It certainly
beats knocking back a Berocca.