Feeding the dialogue: Understanding food systems through design
Experiencing Food: Designing Dialogues
Lisbon, Portugal - 2018
by Clément Bordas, Grace Anne Foca, Mac Hill, Amber Ingram, Bree McMahon, Dajana Nedić, and Rachael Paine
Abstract: This exhibition presents the work of masters of graphic design students from North Carolina State University completed during a graduate studio course focusing on the cognitive complexities of the people involved in design systems. The course used food as a theme to inform research and design investigations. The collective body of work is part of a larger, ongoing conversation about the design of food systems. The methods used, in tandem with the resulting work, looked for methods to build awareness of new lifestyles and innovative approaches for food.
The course began with research on various food systems--vendors, shopping experiences, and distributions. Students visually mapped points of interaction, and considered experiences from various perspectives; customers, consumers, providers, distributors, and vendors.
Following general research, the focus moved to activity and schema theories. Students visually explored small interest points discovered through initial research. Explorations focused on how people within systems could be moved to shift their frame of thinking based on design. The concept of cultured, or in-vitro meat, was introduced to provide a central point of focus and exploration. Students explored how design can move an audience along a Receptivity Gradient, as theorized by David Rose, MIT Media Lab Visiting Scientist.
Through this process, students were collectively immersed in all things food, becoming pseudo experts in a previously unfamiliar subject. By exploring the work of peers, students laid the groundwork for discussion on a variety of topics, including: food allergies, culinary innovation, farming practices, manufacturing, the impact of livestock on the environment, farm waste, fast food, and culinary innovation. These discussions and conversations furthered the work, and in turn, the work furthered the discussion.
The resulting body of work is presented as an exhibition with the intention of encouraging cross-disciplinary conversation in the Experiencing Food conference space.
Above are digital representations of panels that were printed and installed at the 1st International Food Design and Food Studies Conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
Along with two peers from the Masters of Graphic Design program at NC State University, I planned and facilitated a workshop to develop our installation for the Food Design and Food Studies conference. The workshop took place over the course of two hours, with eight participants. We systematically arranged previous work and then responded to the results as a group.