Hops, Agricultural waste

Ecologies of Hops

Cultivate Cultures: Ecologies of Hops is an art-led, multidisciplinary project initiated by Susana Cámara Leret, that investigates the politics, aesthetics and modes of consumption of hops (Humulus lupulus).

This plant’s female flower contains lupulin, a yellow resinous substance and essential active ingredient in brewing that provides beer its characteristic aroma and flavour. Due to its economic relevance, it is referred to as "wealth" in popular culture. The work enquires on the multifaceted aspects that currently freeze the flower into the generic image of a logo, silencing other fields of the plant’s imaginaries and ecologies. In doing so, it connects a series of processes and productions throughout the plant, its industry and its social and demographic impact on the province of León, Spain, which produces 95% of all Spanish hops.

Despite the crop’s historical relevance in this rural region, its harvest is monopolised by multinational companies that dictate market prices and the varieties grown, according to the demands of a globalised brewing industry. Because of this, the majority of the plant is discarded as only the flowers are considered valuable, generating large amounts of agricultural waste.

The work develops throughout different discourses and media that address the re-materialisation of the crop’s waste, under the premise that hops are more than beer. Through the creation of new, plant-based materials and narratives, the project explores the transformation of material cultures and the loss of agrarian, rural memory.

Making process

Hops (Humulus lupulus) is a climbing species, capable of reaching 10 meters in height, closely related to hemp as it belongs to the Cannabaceae family. Despite its varied uses throughout history, currently the majority of the plant is discarded during harvest, generating large amounts of wasted plant-matter.

The work begun in 2018, inspired by how current industrialised agricultural practices had overlooked the potential of this material. It develops through hands-on, material experiments and the revisiting of traditional crafts. Its working methodology is based on developing extensive fieldwork, through collaborative processes between the artist and farmers, craftspeople and/or other creators, ethnobotanists, chemist and anthropologists. This has led to the creation of a broad network of collaborators, materials and resources:

- Exploring the plant’s memory, a collection of +100 herbarium specimens was created, composed of samples from harvested, escaped and wild plants. Next to this, a Memory Bank was initiated, harvesting old varieties from plant cultivars that were sourced from local farmers, who kept them in their fields whilst safeguarding the plant’s genetic diversity.
- Over the past 7 years, various interviews and sound / video recordings were made with farmers, on the plant’s harvest and its local memory. These led to the creation of several videos, as well as the vinyl series Geophonies of hops, inspired by the plant’s soundscapes.
- Revisiting the plant’s historical uses, Susana experimented with the extraction of dyes and textile fibres, referencing traditional processes used in the local harvest of flax and hemp, as hops’ structure is similar to these bast fibre plants. The plant’s stems were retted in local riverbanks, as was traditionally done with flax, in a process that tracing the landscape onto its artefacts. Due to the plant’s high cellulose content, this process naturally led to exploring the creation of paper pulp, creating different surfaces, panels and objects. Thicker panels were also developed and tested as a thermal, insulating material for bioconstruction, in collaboration with the Castille-Leon Agriculture Technology Institute (ITACyL) and the Eduardo Torroja Institute for Construction Sciences (IETcc), part of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). No binding agent is used, the resulting material is non-polluting and is obtained through a sustainable process.
- Collective gatherings and workshops were held, opening up the material experimentation process to the public whilst stimulating discussions on the current cultivation system. They worked with local communities to explore the creation of paper masks, woven structures from the plant’s stems, and the dyeing of fabrics with its leaves and stems. The material outcomes from these sessions were used to create a series of characters (named Motas y Manchas, or Flowers and Stains) for the Antruejo, a winter carnival period and local rural festivity.

These artefacts and processes revisit local, agrarian traditions as a means to expand the memory and iconicity of hops in the region through processes of re-materialization. They put forward other forms and aesthetics that aim to amplify the plant’s ecologies and image.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.