Between PC and Plate

Many of us may remem­ber the stern admon­ish­ment “Don’t play with your food!” from our child­hood. But why shouldn’t we? Isn’t food an incred­i­ble repos­i­to­ry of cre­ativ­i­ty, con­nec­tion, and plea­sure? We talked to Dutch food design­er Mar­i­je Vogelzang, whose talk at the mcbw Design Sum­mit explained that food and eat­ing are the eas­i­est way to change our lives. 

Bet­ti­na Schulz: As a pio­neer in your field, how often have you had to explain what your design work involves?

Mar­i­je Vogelzang: Almost always! Although it is get­ting eas­i­er. While peo­ple might not know what food design is, more and more do know that food is some­thing impor­tant which we need to address. And they sense that food is some­thing that might look dif­fer­ent in the future.

When did you real­ize that food can be about more than just nutri­tion, and design can involve more than mere­ly cre­at­ing objects?

When I did my first project with food—a white funer­al dinner—I real­ized that my design was actu­al­ly enter­ing oth­er people’s bod­ies. I still find that fas­ci­nat­ing. As a design stu­dent at Design Acad­e­my Eind­hoven in the 90s, I was cer­tain­ly influ­enced by Droog, the con­cep­tu­al design move­ment teach­ing that design need not be a prod­uct, but can be a ser­vice, a chore­og­ra­phy or, indeed, food.

What are the most fun­da­men­tal par­al­lels between design and food? 

Design, in my opin­ion, is meant to shine a light on some­thing unseen, so it can become seen. 

But design is also there to enhance and enrich life. Food is so unas­sum­ing and mun­dane (which is real­ly weird in itself) so we don‘t real­ly per­ceive its pres­ence, its qual­i­ties, its influ­ence on us. Design can like­wise exert influ­ence with­out being noticed, so in that respect there is a par­al­lel. 

To what extent can design influ­ence how and what we eat, and can it actu­al­ly change our rela­tion­ship with food? 

Design can def­i­nite­ly change our rela­tion­ship with food. And so it should. Eat­ing is the most fun­da­men­tal and impor­tant aspect of being human, and has always been a prod­uct of a design process—from orange car­rots to com­plete dish­es and the ques­tion of who eats what. Most of the time the issue isn’t even food, but the “eat­ing human being.” 

Can food design also be a form of healthcare?

Food can cer­tain­ly be health­care, because food can make you healthy—but it can equal­ly make you sick. Food has an influ­ence and agency that goes far beyond any oth­er design mate­r­i­al. So using design in con­nec­tion with food is extreme­ly pow­er­ful because it hits the very core of what and who we are. It hum­bles us.

Food cul­ture cer­tain­ly seems to be suf­fer­ing in our fast-paced times. What counter-move­ments can you see?
A suf­fer­ing food cul­ture some­times means cre­at­ing space for new ways of see­ing things, for new food mate­ri­als and new habits. Some­times our lives no longer fit old beliefs and old habits. It might be a mess right now, but some­times the mess is nec­es­sary to allow all the sep­a­rate parts to move and recal­i­brate in a new and more use­ful way.

 A few years ago, you ran two exper­i­men­tal restau­rants. What insights did you gain for your research from this prac­ti­cal project?

Oh, plen­ty. Most­ly that food is not about food, but about the eat­ing human being, and that this eat­ing human being is full of irra­tional expec­ta­tions, beliefs, and emo­tions that, in turn, shape the food expe­ri­ence. But also that expec­ta­tion man­age­ment is some­thing every design­er should learn more about. Also that it’s easy to talk about design visions with­out actu­al­ly doing the hard work of real­ly cre­at­ing them. 

You also run cours­es and work­shops. Does input from par­tic­i­pants some­times make these turn out sur­pris­ing­ly dif­fer­ent­ly than planned? Or are we all actu­al­ly very sim­i­lar when it comes to food and how we per­ceive it?

In my work­shops and cours­es, I always include plen­ty of space for people’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence and devel­op­ment. That means a lot of let­ting go and not forc­ing my ideas onto oth­er peo­ple, in order to cre­ate space for sur­prise and won­der. Of course, after at least 20 years of teach­ing I do fre­quent­ly see sim­i­lar ideas com­ing up, but we always try to dig deep­er. And the cool thing is that food offers end­less things to discover.

The theme of this year’s MCBW is “Play­ground of Pos­si­bil­i­ties.” Giv­en all the design exper­tise in play, how impor­tant is it to allow for a play­ful approach in order to fos­ter inno­va­tion? 

Well, my new design space in the Nether­lands is called Food Design Play­ground. So per­haps that answers your ques­tion. (laughs) I have a firm belief in play, its attrac­tive­ness and impor­tance. Espe­cial­ly in today’s world, where peo­ple feel every­thing needs to serve a pur­pose. I hon­est­ly feel like I’m play­ing in my Food Design Play­ground (a mon­u­men­tal build­ing with 900 m² of space).

But play is not only the start­ing-point. It is a way to get peo­ple to see things dif­fer­ent­ly. In my case, to expe­ri­ence food in new ways. So in that respect, I view play not as a form of infan­tiliza­tion, but as a seri­ous form of connection.

What was the main mes­sage of your talk that you hoped the audi­ence would take away? 

The main mes­sage is that food is not about food, that play is essen­tial, and that imag­i­na­tion and food are the eas­i­est and most acces­si­ble way to change your life.

And last but not least: what do you your­self like to eat best, and how?

I most enjoy eat­ing with my hands, with peo­ple I can laugh with.

Inter­view by Bet­ti­na Schulz for bay­ern design.