SUGAR ROPE

'Sugar Rope'

Culhane & Conneally

Loughborough 2014

One of 20 hand platted sugar ropes hung in and around the Barefoot Orchard on Loughborough University's Fruit Route.

The ropes are made from a bed sheet ripped into lengths and hand platted by artist Anne-Marie Culhane with visitors to the Fruit Routes Wild Tea Party in the Barefoot Orchard.

The ropes are then soaked in a hot syrup, a form of 'lepidopterist's sugar' made on site by Paul Conneally, mixing and heating two cans of Mackeson, 1kg of soft brown sugar and black treacle.

In the evening the ropes are hung around the orchard area to attract moths. At the same time light traps are set up to also draw in moths for the gathered people to watch.

Fruit Routes is an ongoing project conceived by Anne-Marie Culhane for Loughborough University Sustainability Team. It now forms part of the wider university EAT YOUR CAMPUS (a Fruit Routes slogan) initiative that won the 2014 Guardian Higher Education Award for Sustainability.