MINI EXTRAODDINARY

AN ECOCULTURAL TRAIL

Sustainability has always been at the heart of MINI’s DNA. After all, the very first MINI was conceived as a solution to minimise resources during the Suez fuel shortage. In 2018, we took the sustainability conversation beyond the automobile by creating an experiential learning trail in the unlikeliest of places: Chinatown. 

Featuring odd eco-innovations from building materials to foods of the future, the 16 exhibits and activities invited people to learn about the sometimes strange science of sustainability through a familiar cultural lens. 

If you’re skipping the video, you can scroll further down for my favourite highlights of the trail.

Guardians of the Future

Traditionally cast in stone, this pair of Chinese Imperial guardian lions were instead grown into shape from mycelium or the ‘roots’ of mushrooms. Stronger than concrete kilo for kilo, this robust sustainable material could one day be used to build our homes.

Soup for the Eco-Soul

Herbal soup’s great, plastic soup’s not so. In front of a Chinese medical hall, we boiled herbal soup ingredients together with its “plastic” packaging to the surprise of viewers. Made from seaweed, this edible plastic alternative may just be the solution to end our plastic pollution in the ocean.

Rewriting Our Fate

Auspicious calligraphy scrolls used to decorate homes were turned into blessings for the Earth in this exhibit. But the real eye-opener is in the ink they’re written with, which has been processed from sewage biosolids and actually smells better than traditional Chinese ink.

Scum & Scrumptious

This live food installation introduced algae as our protein source of tomorrow – in the tank right next to our seafood. Nutritional labels showed how gram for gram, algae provides more than double the protein of fish. Once considered mere scum of the pond, it’s poised to land on our dinner plate soon with global overfishing on the rise.

Fortune In A Cookie

To warm people up to the idea of eating the odd green microorganisms, we brought them a taste with algae fortune cookies – each filled with a tongue-in-cheek message conveying that the fortune of our Earth really lies in their hands.

All I Got Was This Trashy Souvenir

No visit to Chinatown would be complete without trashy souvenirs, which in this case, were really made from plastic trash. In this installation disguised as a souvenir shop, visitors discovered keepsakes made from 100% recycled waste that served to remind them of the global plastic epidemic.

Exploring a wide range of sustainability issues, the trail also featured a pineapple “stall” with products made from a pineapple leather alternative, a vertical urban farm in the shape of the Chinese character 生 (meaning ‘life’), meatless bakkwa (a Chinese jerky treat), an eco-printing workshop in the fashion district, and a local coffee cart that displayed mushrooms grown from coffee grounds.