Biofilm Productions
Biofilm Productions is time-lapse videographer Joel Penner (National Geographic's One Strange Rock) and writer/podcaster Anna Sigrithur (Nordic Food Lab Radio, Oxford Food Symposium's Ox Tales podcast).
Based out of Winnipeg, Treaty 1 Territory, we share a passion for the natural world around us, with a particular love of finding vibrancy and life in human-altered environments like back lanes or kitchen composts.
Collaborators since 2015 on projects such as invasive urban plant educational tours, edible weed cooking classes and many an excursion looking for a rare plant, fungus or animal, we feed off of each other’s desire to engage with and explore other species around us in creative ways.
photos by Tyler Funk
About the Artists
Joel Penner is a filmmaker who uses computer scanners to create timelapses of plants and fungi decaying, with the goal of inspiring people to see the unfathomable beauty of everyday existence. He has made numerous art films set to music using this unique footage. He has also hosted multiple artistic/ educational video presentations highlighting the extraordinary worlds of common weeds, Canadian mosses, as well as conifers and symbiotic fungi. He has had showings of his work in both Canada and Europe. He currently does after-school programming and teaches photography with youth in Winnipeg's inner city.
Anna Sigrithur is writer, artist, food researcher and cook whose work explores food cultures, food preservation, fermentation, microbiology, sensory perception and human/non-human relationships. In 2015 she interned at Noma's Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen where she produced a season podcasts for Nordic Food Lab Radio about living with Sami reindeer herders, and most recently produced two seasons of food history podcasts for the Oxford Food Symposium in the UK. She is also an amateur perfumer, who, alongside of developing Wrought, has been experimenting with creating microbially-based perfumes.