By Melissa Walsh
S
THE WEIRD & WONDERFUL WORLD OF
STEPHEN MUSHIN E ssence
62 | PENINSULA
April 2017
tephen Mushin has an unusual way of tackling the big issues with his latest Cowship Project Plan A/Plan B at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery offering solutions to serious environmental problems.
The Cowship concept was invented by Mushin and originally exhibited as part of CUSP: Designing for the next Decade, a touring exhibition curated by The Australian Design Centre. It was further developed to a feasible engineering model as part of Farming Tokyo with Spiral Contemporary Art Gallery in Japan, and is now being developed to a working prototype in Melbourne by a collaboration of designers, scientists and engineers. “We work in secrecy to avoid bothersome regulations relating to flying animals and highly explosive gases,” said Mushin, an industrial designer and artist whose projects explore the interactions between human made machines and natural ecologies. His Cows Must Fly project has been in collaboration with engineers and scientists to build the world's first Cowship. Offering what has been called “a far-fetched conceptual response to the vexing questions of consumption”, the Cowship