During October 2004 Coleman Project Space was occupied
with operation SOS:OK (SAVE OUR SOULS: ZERO KILLINGS), the largest
ever simulation of an Emergency Relief Food operation in London to
test the readiness of its emergency rescue services. The aim: to test
a prototype for an emergency biscuit that is nutritionally and culturally
appropriate as well as logistically convenient for delivery to uprooted
and disaster affected populations in the first stages of an emergency.
The biscuit, envisaged as the prototype for a high-protein, fortified,
is a stand-alone ready to eat food to respond to the escalating number
of man-made and natural humanitarian emergencies.
The mock relief food operation was held at the art
gallery in Webster Road, on the site adjacent to the former Peek Freans.
Known as ‘the biscuit town’, it was the first biscuit
factory to be involved in a food rescue operation, that of feeding
the starving population of Paris, after the raising of the siege of
the city, which took place during the Franco-German War of 1870. During
the exercise, more than 400 volunteers pretended to be the victimes
of a major terror attack and underwent a food assistance operation,
which involved the distribution of appropriate and nutritious biscuits
on a timely basis by the relief crew to the starving population. A
spokesperson for the London Emergency Services said that “the
exercise was as realistic as possible”.