Free Food Kit

In early 2013, Patrick Lydon and Suhee Kang developed the Free Food Kit concept for an interactive art exhibition at N3 Art Lab, Yamaguchi Japan. Since then, we’ve began to incorporate it into our screenings and shows.

The idea for these envelopes came to be as a way for people to re-connect with where food comes from, and also, to realize that food needn’t always be something purchased from the supermarket. Food is free, if you grow it. The envelopes for these kits are generally made with locally-sourced sustainable materials, such as plant-based biodegradable papers. Free Food Kits contain different kinds of seeds, which vary with the location.

Edinburgh, Scotland

We gave away about 1,600 servings of vegetables in Edinburgh! All packed into small, handmade envelopes of seed.

If you were the recipient of a Free Food Kit at the Final Straw show in Edinburgh, below is a visual guide to what is in your envelope, click on it to enlarge and/or save it! Hold onto the seeds for now, and keep them in a cool and dry place until the snow has come and gone! Once spring has sprung, check back here for planting instructions.

Yamaguchi, Japan

This was the very first Free Food Kit, which ran for two months and gave away over 5,000 servings of vegetables and greens in the form of seed.

Created for the “Eco Art Village Project,” an exhibition at N3 Art Lab in Yamaguchi, Japan, Free Food Kit featured handmade washi paper envelopes and a container where gallery visitors were encouraged to fill their envelopes with seed and become local ‘seed bombers.’ It proved perhaps a bit too popular, as we had run out of envelopes just a few weeks into the show!