LOCAL RIVER home storage unit for fish and greens. [VIDEO+VIDEO TED]

17/03/2011. by Mathieu Lehanneur in collaboration with Anthony van den Bossche
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has created Local River, a concept for a domestic “refrigerator-aquarium” that breeds freshwater fish for eating and grows vegetables at the same time. Inspired by the Locavores movement of people who source food grown locally to avoid pollution and ensure freshness, the project would allow people to produce their own food at home. The concept will be presented at Artists Space Gallery in New York from 25 April, 2008. Curator : Alexandra Midal.

LOCAL RIVER by Mathieu Lehanneur in collaboration with Anthony van den Bossche.

LOCAL RIVER by Mathieu Lehanneur in collaboration with Anthony van den Bossche.

Model, LOCAL RIVER by Mathieu Lehanneur in collaboration with Anthony van den Bossche.

Mathieu Lehanneur with Anthony van den Bossche.

The Locavores appeared in San Francisco in 2005 and define themselves as ‘a group of culinary adventurers who eat foods produced in a radius of 100 miles (160 km) around their city’. By doing so they aim to reduce impact on the environment inherent to the transport of foodstuffs, while ensuring their traceability.

Local River anticipates the growing influence of this group (the word ‘locavore’ made its first appearance in an American dictionary in 2007) by proposing a home storage unit for live freshwater fish combined with a mini vegetable patch. This DIY fish-farm-cum-kitchen-garden is based on the principle of aquaponics coupled with the exchange and interdependence of two living organisms – plants and fish.

The plants extract nutrients from the nitrate-rich dejecta of the fish. In doing so they act as a natural filter that purifies the water and maintains a vital balance for the eco-system in which the fish live. The same technique is used on large-scale pioneer aquaponics/fish-farms, which raise tilapia (a food fish from the Far East) and lettuce planted in trays floating on the surface of ponds.

Local River responds to everyday needs for fresh food that is 100% traceable. It bets on a return to favour of farm-raised freshwater fish (trout, eel, perch, carp, etc…), given the dwindling supplies of many saltwater species due to over-fishing. It also demonstrates the capacity of fish-farmers to deliver their stock live to a private consumer as a guarantee of optimum freshness – impossible in the case of saltwater fish that has been netted.

Local River aims to replace the decorative ‘TV aquarium’ by an equally decorative but also functional ‘refrigerator-aquarium’. In this scenario, fish and greens cohabit for a short time in a home storage unit before being eaten by their keepers, the end-players in an exchange cycle within a controlled ecosystem.

Materials: glass: blown & thermoformed, water pump, joints.
Dimensions : Large : 64 x 29 x 39 inches, Small : 29 x 18 x 36 inches.

“Local River”
Mathieu Lehanneur
with Anthony van den Bossche, spin doctor