Fun but not educational. Contains spoilers.
The blurby bit
In the face of global food shortages, humans need to re-examine our food sources. One presenting itself as a sustainable and nutritious option is the unassuming bat. These flying mammals have been a delicacy in some cultures for centuries, but this ancient dish is often viewed with disgust in the Western world.
Yet with some bat populations declining, is it problematic to consume them? Should they instead be revered for their vital impact on our ecosystem? How do we navigate notions of delicacy, disgust and interspecies empathy as we radically rethink the norms of global consumption?
Set in an imagined night market where bat species are extinct, BAT NIGHT MARKET intersects performance, speculative design and science. Audiences are invited to celebrate these enigmatic animals in an evening of discussions, games, tastings and sensory experiences.
Creative R&D for BAT NIGHT MARKET took place in Taiwan at Taipei Performing Arts Center and here in the UK at Science Gallery London, where artists Kuang-Yi Ku and Robert Johnson collaborated with a number of King’s researchers. These included Lucy Di Silvio, a Professor of Tissue Engineering; PhD researcher Martha Gallardo Galaviz; anthropologist Ann Kelly; and Gemma Bowsher, who works at the interface of health security and biological threats. Together, their combined expertise and scientific knowledge have helped design this imagined future.
From the Science Gallery website
Introduction
I’ve been a recipient of the Science Gallery’s newsletter ever since they did an exhibition called ‘Genders: Shaping and Breaking the Binary’.
In fact, I even signed up to do a workshop with the makers of the exhibition but alas it was not to happen, as literally hours before the workshop was due to run the whole of the UK was suddenly locked down. COVID19 had hit the UK.
It wasn’t until now that I’ve been tempted to return, for the rather tantalising Bat Night Market.
Funding
There is a detailed credit list of those funding Bat Night Market, notably Taiwanese money.
BAT NIGHT MARKET is funded by ARTWAVE and the British Council as part of the International Collaboration Grants, and the National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF). Supported by Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor advised fund at the London Community Foundation. Research and development supported by Science Gallery London, part of King’s College London, and the Embassy of the Netherlands in the UK. Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Bao, Goldsmiths University of London, and Taipei Performing Arts Centre (TPAC).
From the Science Gallery website
The experience
I have to say, I really enjoyed the Bat Night Market experience, but there again I did get my ticket at a special price – just £5. If I’d paid the full whack (£22), I’d probably be disgruntled, especially if I was hoping for an educational experience. It’s a weird mix of performance, audience participation, hor d’oeuvres and some factoids about bats thrown in.
At the outset of our ‘trip’ we were informed by our host that we were being taken into the future, to a time when bats were extinct, ergo we were off to eat bats at the Bat Night Market – make sense? Erm, no. But it didn’t really need to, since when we got upstairs we were greeted by the next actor, so ill at ease at her predicament she provoked severe vicarious mortification in us all. She was working in a lab. Her parents used to eat bats and we shouldn’t judge people who eat bats and that bats weren’t the carriers of covid and no one got covid because they ate a bat. Right. They’re extinct now, which is really sad because they are so important for the environment. Right, so why are we eating them then? It was okay to eat the bats that we were eating because they had been created from a 3D printer, cue a video of an actress in a white coat explaining the ‘science’ to us. Um, okay, but you just said it was okay to eat bats in the past. Bats are extinct, not because my people are stuffing their faces with them but because evil Westerners’ prejudice. Right. Was it satire? I really couldn’t tell, but it was funny though.
While in the lab, we were fed some ‘bat blood jelly’ and harangued by our lab worker how much we thought the lab should charge for the product, which came with the choice of three accompaniments: bat fur, bat tongue or bat belly. I chose the fur, made out of candy floss, which disappeared on contact with the jelly. Disappointing.
Next was a hoop throwing game, compered by a trans-identified female called Sigi Moon, who I had the misfortune of seeing in The Enby Show. As a reward for completing a game (about four in total), a factoid was played on video from Dr Gemma, who knew all about bats. There are over 14,000 species of bats or summink.
Mia next. The best actor of the lot, although her voice were rather piercing, so while you were in another section all you could hear was Mia shrieking her lines. We were given a coconut soup (I forget what it was supposed to be, bat’s piss presumably) and a bao bun supposedly filled with insects (was delicious). It’s okay to eat insects, isn’t it?, our Mia suggested. And, weirdly: ‘Do humans deserve to live?’ Yes, everyone deserves to live, we answered. I suppose that was the lively discussion/thought provoking bit.
Then there was a dice throwing game based on the environments that bats lives, rewarded by a little coconut drink. Bats live in caves, forests and ‘heritage buildings’ (you know how fancy bats are). There was a fourth but I can’t remember that one.
The final section we were greeted by a man whose hair completely covered his face, playing the role of guru. He invited us to put on headphones and take a shard of candy to suck on. The soundtrack played was very the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh and in front of us Hair Face died a death, rolling on the floor. Then he got up and gave us all a thick piece of card to write our thoughts on. After such strong prodding from Hair Face, our written thoughts predictably ran along the lines of ‘Long Live Bats!’, ‘They should be the overlords,’ and ‘Protect the ecosystem’.
Reflection
I completely enjoyed my £5 experience and thought it thoroughly hilarious, but if you’d booked wanting to learn anything about bats, you’d be sorely disappointed. The exhibition’s focus is really on entertainment, which I think it does pretty well (bearing in mind it cost me precisely a latte and half a biscuit). We didn’t even see a photo of a bat. Nor were we reminded that bats are mammals, the only mammals that can truly fly, or that they give birth upside down. And some wrong information was given about bats too, like they have poor eyesight (they actually don’t, echolocation is used to improve hunting accuracy), which is truly unforgivable. We were also told that bats have opposable thumbs, which is technically true, but as their phalanges make up the whole of their wings (which were not told), such a claim, out of context, is meaningless. So, like I say, not one for those seeking an educational experience.
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