Society of Cocktails and ArtHouse Jersey
The Society of Cocktails is a collaborative shifting collective of artists, mixologists and creatives that has worked with ArtHouse Jersey to present uniquely designed immersive experiences with remarkable cocktail creations.
Designed by Creative Lead Thomas Buckley.
THE HUNTING OF THE WREN, 2024
From 13th to 21st December 2024 the acclaimed collective Society of Cocktails brought to Jersey a new cocktail and storytelling performance. Audiences were guided through folklore using bardic storytelling, audio hallucination and technology-trickery to journey through the Celtic winter tradition of 'the Hunting of the Wren'. People were tricked, entertained and... hunted.
The performances were sensory and intimate, offering a trail of ancient knowledge, inviting people at key points to solve problems, taste bizarre edible moments, all the while drawing them further into the re-imagined space of ArtHouse Jersey at Capital House.
Creative collaborators: Kate Phillips (Artist), Johnny Jones (Performer).
MEMORY BAR, 2022
In 2022 Society of Cocktails presented ‘Memory Bar’ which saw guests enjoy a tasting menu of bespoke cocktails inspired by people’s real memories brought to life through a multisensory live-art performance. Guests are invited to spend an evening stepping into another person's life as sound, smell and taste offer up surprising twists on life stories collected from real people who live in Jersey.
These events were set amongst the immersive Recollect exhibition at ArtHouse Jersey at Capital House which used creativity and technology to bring to life the memories of a selection of Jersey’s elderly people. Memory Bar offered a new way of seeing how we might share our histories and understand ourselves as part of a wider community.
Creative collaborators: Kate Phillips (artist ), Renske van Vroonhoven (perfumer and scent designer), Sharon Clark (theatre director and writer) and Ned Lawlor (experimental mixologist).
ABOUT THE ARTIST THOMAS BUCKLEY
Thomas Buckley is an alumni fellow of The Royal Shakespeare Company who works as an artist and storyteller. Working in projection, immersive technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, XR) and interactive installations, his work is often about using digital or XR outcomes to draw out our humanity.
The relationship between Thomas Buckley and ArtHouse Jersey has developed and strengthened over the years. Thomas was a participant in our 2019 Artist Lock In at Greve de Lecq Barracks. Our Producers were so excited about the work he was presenting that he was offered a research and development residency at the start of 2020, where he worked with a team of collaborators to develop his Memory Bar concept. When the COVID restrictions hit in the Spring of 2020 Thomas was commissioned to reshape his research to deliver something magical that could be delivered directly to people’s doors. The Memory Box project brought art and technology straight into the homes of the most isolated older people in our community.
