MINI EXTRAODDINARY was a sustainability trail as unconventional as the brand. Choosing to present the topic from an unusual angle, we invited visitors to discover ODD innovations — mushroom cement, edible plastic, sewage ink! — that may be key to a sustainable future. To make the ODD more palatable, we fused them with familiar cultural icons in Chinatown. The result was an ecocultural trail with 16 exhibits that looked right at home in the neighbourhood while making an ecological point.
“Extraoddinary solutions for the world’s extraordinary problems”
Wearable Pineapple
The Chinese love prosperous things, explaining their affection for the pineapple whose Chinese name sounds like a summoning of fortune. This fruit can now be worn too, with its leaves being upcycled into a leather-like material rather than thrown away. Set up to look like a fruit stall, PINEAPPLE TRADING STORE let visitors learn more about this eco material and browse fashion accessories crafted from it.
Mushroom Cement
Usually cast in stone, this pair of Imperial guardian lions named GUARDIANS OF THE FUTURE were instead grown into shape from mushrooms; to be more precise, from their ‘root’ system called mycelium. Stronger than concrete kilo for kilo, we showed how this robust material could one day be the sustainable replacement for traditional building materials obtained from destructive mining.
Edible Plastic
Imagine a plastic that can be dissolved in water or eaten together with the food it wraps, eliminating waste and pollution. SOUP FOR THE ECO-SOUL showcased such an edible bioplastic made from seaweed, using it as packaging for Chinese herbal soup mix. Visitors were treated to a live demo of how the ‘plastic’ could be boiled together with the herbs to produce a soup that’s good for our health and that of Mother Earth too.
Like the inaugural event held in 2018, MINI EXTRAODDINARY 2019 drew crowds with its interesting premise, welcoming more than 74,000 visitors over three days.
