Marije Vogelzang and Joerg Suermann, © Rosa Merk, Courtesy DMY Berlin

Marcia Caines met with the self-proclaimed ‘eating designer’ Mariie Vogelzang (Proef), Dutch designer and food specialist at the 7th edition of the DMY design festival in Berlin where Marije prepared a Dutch Design Dinner; an interactive, colour-coded experience based on the designer’s research on colour association and food as a cure for childhood obesity.

MC: You graduated from the Design Academy in Eindhoven in 2000 and since then have been working from the Netherlands (Rotterdam / Amsterdam), How important is your ‘Dutch’ identity in your design work?

MV: Very important, or at least it was in the when I started out with food. I’m interested in the social and cultural aspects of design and therefore it was logical for me to start from my origins and territory. The beginning is a good place to start! Dutch people have a very low self-esteem when it comes to food, we’re not proud of our food culture and our cuisine doesn’t have a good reputation – as bad, if not worse, than that of the British! – Paradoxically the Dutch design culture is held in high esteem. On these grounds food (or eating) was a stimulating and challenging field for me to explore as a Dutch designer. As time goes on other cultures provide equal insight for my work.

Dutch Design Dinner, DMY Berlin 2009 ©Rosa Merk, courtesy DMY design Festival

MC: Why ‘food’ as a material?

MV:I started to have fun playing with food and discovering its potential as a design tool. Design has always played an important role in the objects and furniture that surround food and eating habits, but more recently people’s perceptions of food have changed radically and food has moved into the creative fields of design and art. My work explores the verb ‘eating’ through design. After 10 years of experience I developed an eight-point philosophy that shows the opportunities of food in design: senses, nature, culture, society, technique, science, psychology and action.

MC: This afternoon you will be speaking at the DMY symposium on sustainability, how do you approach the challenges of systemic change through ‘eating’ design?

MV: Well, to start with using food as a medium means my designs have a short life cycle; they are eaten, digested and defecated, I think that classifies them a sustainable. There’s an over abundance of products/consumer goods on the market and designers have a duty to address this problem by keeping in mind the intrinsic value of design.
In 2007 I designed a ‘Sustainability Dinner’ for the Donck Sessions at Huis then Donck, which was a meal prepared using a Hay Box Cooker – an ingenious thermal box that continues the cooking process through heat retention without consuming energy. It’s an ancient method of preparing food by slow cooking and the result is good and healthy, it is still used in many developing countries, in conjunction with a solar cooker or other types of fuel cookers or stoves in order to preserve valuable and scarce fuel resources. You could even cook food in your bed with a Hay Box Cooker or even construct one yourself; it’s a sustainable, healthy and economical way to prepare food.
I don’t take a moral stance in sustainability; I favour freedom of choice above the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do things. But, awareness is a key factor and if people are given alternative methods it’s easier for them to make a good choice. People’s lifestyles are often unsustainable because our systems are, not because people are intentionally irresponsible. You can’t blame people that survived a war, for eating strawberries in winter! People are empowered through knowledge and awareness, but our systems require innovative and practical substitutes.

MC: Global Food systems have a huge ecological impact on cities. Approximately 25 % of an ‘advanced’ city’s carbon footprint can be attributed to its food systems, how can design improve this?

MV: This is a complex problem. Apart from new technologies – which isn’t my field -design can help through awareness, participation and experience. If problems are confined to traditional media people feel distant from them and tend to rely on governmental bodies to resolve them. When people are made to feel part of the problem, they are more willing to become part of the solution.
Food systems are complicated because banning foods or blocking imports often makes certain products more desirable, e.g. Caviar, and because big cities with multicultural societies have a high demand for multiethnic foods.
On this topic I developed a project called ‘Urban Eco’ which consisted of preparing food from ingredients found growing spontaneously in urban space (inner-city food): wild berries, a variety of edible weeds, eggs from the ducks in the ponds and pigeons, and nuts. The aim was to make people aware of their environment, the other forms of life that inhabit cities and what is available around you, without going anywhere.
I also realized another project where I presented painting palettes of melon and ham, tiny melon-balls in the holes, folded slices of ham in the squares. Underneath the ham we placed tiny notes explaining the miles the ham and melon have travelled. People could make their own taste decision. The idea was to see if people actually prefer imported foods or local ones when offered the choice. People don’t always realise that they are buying imported foods or that the local produce is just as good and probably cheaper.
In this case design can be a tool for making people aware of the consequences of their choices.
Another way design can intervene is by working with children, children are the future, and they are great ambassadors for change, as a designer – and a mother – I like to work and be inspired by children.

Desgin Symposium, DMY Berlin 2009 © Federico Testa

MC: You often integrate ‘memory’ into your projects, how do you perceive the relationship between memory and food?

MV: Memory and food have a strong relationship. Most people’s favourite food is their mother’s cooking and early childhood memories are often associated with food experiences. Memories connected to ‘eating’ are deeply embedded into our cultural and societal behaviours, where food acquires an emotional value by affecting the mind as well as the body.
I designed snacks for the opening party, a commemoration of World War II in Schielandhuis, part of Rotterdam’s Museum of History, using frugal war recipes and food ration ingredients. Rotterdam suffered severe famine during World War II, and unknown to me there were guests present at the opening who had survived the war, some of whom hadn’t eaten those foods for 60 years. It was a very emotional experience as their reaction to the taste roused strong emotion and brought back vivid memories.

MC: ‘Sharing’ is also a concept you frequently use in your work; do you consider ‘sharing’ a design practice or an eating experience?

MV: ‘Sharing’ is an inspiration for me as a designer because of its social and cultural implications; sharing helps to connect people, makes experiences pleasurable, encourages cultural exchange, and builds trust. Sharing has played a crucial role in food rituals since ancient times and still is for example in Chinese and Arabic food cultures, where it is beneficial to community life. In western cultures mealtimes have lost this tradition, this is a pity, I like to experiment new rituals that involve sharing and social interaction during the eating experience. I have observed that different group identities have different reactions to sharing, corporate groups for example don’t engage so willingly with this practice, this could be due to tensions among group members that make interaction more arduous or simply because they are more accustomed to a more traditional sit-down restaurant situations.

MC: What role does architecture play in your designs?

MV: Architecture influences me it gives me space for ideas and ideas for space. I’m curious about the differences of eating inside or outside and I’m fascinated by street-food, something I would like to work more on.

MC: Do you prefer food or design?

MV: Food is a tool for me as a designer. An unusual characteristic of ‘eating design’ though is that good design can result in bad food and bad design can result in good food, so let’s just say that food is more important! I’m a designer not a chef; I like the creative process most.
I don’t come from a cooking background, so I’m not a ‘foodie’, but I recently made a pact with myself that I must eat everything, which has made food more intriguing to me. I recently ate raw Jellyfish in Japan; to my surprise it was crispy!

MC: What are your plans/projects for the future?

MV: I have two important projects underway at the moment.
One is for a hospital in Gouda. A recent study revealed that 40% of patients in hospital in Holland suffer from malnutrition and 60% are malnourished when discharged from hospital. The object of my project is to introduce a new idea or concept for snacks given to patients during recovery. It will be a big challenge for me from many view points, but this is the direction I would like to move towards the future, projects of a social nature. I’m planning to divide my business in Amsterdam so Proef will continue its work in the artistic-catering sector while I will work under my own name on artistic-social social projects. The other project I’m working on is a children’s lunch box project. My daughter started school this year and I realized just how sad and unimaginative packed lunches are compared to warm meals at home. Sad, sad, sad. My project will include a book about picnics and nice things to put in packed lunches to make them more original and exciting.