Manchester’s Aviva Studios has launched an immersive and satirical take on the fast food industry. But is everything at the Real Good Chicken Company finger-licking good?
OK, visitors don’t actually get any food during the hour-long, eight-room tour of Aviva Studios’ upstairs Warehouse space. But this and other storytelling techniques were considered by Marshmallow Laser Feast and Factory International during the development of Sweet Dreams. The merchandise, on the other hand, is almost good enough to eat.
Scripted by former chef Simon Wroe, the interactive exhibition runs until 1 September at Aviva Studios, the home of Manchester International Festival producer Factory International.
As a new breed of chicken and burger joints serve up photogenic food to the influencer generation, Sweet Dreams focuses firmly on a legacy brand of global proportions. French artist McBess’s animations and illustrations give the fictional Real Good Chicken Company (RGC) a hipper edge than you might expect. But make no mistake: RGC and its plucky mascot Chicky Ricky, voiced by actor Munwa Chawawa, are in trouble.
“Sweet Dreams holds a cartoon mirror to our world,” says Robin McNicholas, director of Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF). The London-based experiential artist collective is known for its multi-sensory installations focusing on the natural world. Its new offering in Manchester, backed by the BFI (British Film Institute), is its biggest and first story-driven work to date.
“We’re serving up a story where audiences can deepen their connection to the food they eat,” says MicNicholas. “We aim to spark further conversations about our place in the food chain, via chirpy cartoon faces that are often the gatekeepers to the things we consume.”
All cooped up
During the tour, audiences learn a little of RGC’s history. Born in the 1950s, the brand is “not the in the food business, we are in the desire business”. After going global in the ‘80s, it suffered the following decade with the decline of the nuclear family.
Yet Chicky Ricky remains upbeat, in a world where both Ronald McDonald and his own former sidekick, Penny Peckish, have been retired as fast food mascots. Penny is voiced by comedian and impressionist Morgana Robinson, and another character, The Boss, is voiced by comedian Reggie Watts.
Gaming comes to the fore in The Factory, where visitors can interact with a video wall. It all looks like good fun until you read some of the automated processes: head plucker, head remover, neck breaker.
In the Mausoleum, Ricky meets his fate as a brand mascot. His giant webbed feet can be seen sticking out of a bronze coffin, which mourners are invited to shower with sachets of salt.
RGC would not be the first food company to use a cute character to sell what is essentially a dead version of itself.
“The idea of a cannibalistic mascot is fascinating,” says McNicholas. Visitors to Sweet Dreams during previews earlier this month were left with mixed feelings about fast food. “One person would walk out and say, ‘I’m starving’. Another would say, ‘I’m not eating chicken again’. That reflects our ambition for this.”
Marshmallow Laser Feast’s Eleanor Whitley, executive producer of Sweet Dreams, says getting the project off the ground would not have been possible without the support of BFI and National Lottery funding. “It’s difficult, as culture makers and independents with original IP and new stories to tell, to have a voice in a scene which is really commercial.”
Aviva Studios itself was built with more than £100 million of UK government and National Lottery/Arts Council funding. The Manchester cultural destination, which sits on the old site of Granada TV, opened last summer with a Yayoi Kusama exhibition. In December, an immersive David Hockney exhibition beds into the warehouse for a six-week stay.
A developing district in a fast growing city
Comprising both a 5,000 warehouse and 1,500 capacity hall, as well as an outdoor realm, the Factory International HQ also hosts live performances. Housed within another former Granada studio building close by is Little Lion Entertainment’s Crystal Maze live experience.
“We know that the immersive space is quite busy,” says Gabrielle Jenks, Factory International’s digital director. “But one of the gaps that is missing is story. Sweet Dreams advances a new direction for the creative team and aligns perfectly with Factory International’s mission of supporting the art forms of the future.”
Manchester has been dubbed one of fastest growing cities in Europe. Like much of the city centre, development is taking place all around Aviva Studios. “We’re a new destination, but the history of this site and our relationship with the Science and Industry Museum is interesting,” says Jenks. “We’re beginning to have conversations with them about how we might be able to collaborate.”
