You like to take photos with your hens. In many photos you can see them sitting on your shoulder or on your head. Why the weakness for them?
I used to run a restaurant in Amsterdam. I had a garden in a small park next door, grew vegetables and raised a few hens. It was a popular place, so photographers often went there to take some pictures of me. I felt uncomfortable posing for photos like this with nothing. So one time I suggested: let’s take a hen, hoping that the photographer would focus on her and I would somehow hide behind her. I sat her on my shoulder and then on my head. It looked a bit like my face was the egg the hen laid. And that’s how I ended up with my trademark. Photographers are very fond of this motif, although sometimes, when I pose for photos in New York, for example, it’s rather difficult to find a hen!
So let’s start with the “egg,” the seed of your career. How did you get your start in food?
When I got to the Design Academy in Eindhoven, I looked around for the right material. Colleagues were working with wood, ceramics, plastic. At the beginning of studies, everyone tries to find their material. I experimented with many materials, but the idea of making objects didn’t quite turn me on. There are so many in the world already! At that time, none of the designers worked with food. Although there were ideas that one could design not only things, but also services or experiences. Those were difficult moments, I would come home crying, I would almost get kicked out of college. I was stuck in a terrible impasse! It was 1999, and one day I invited guests to my house, cooked them dinner, and realized that the kitchen could be my studio, knives and mixers – tools for processing, and food – material.
Food carries so many meanings!
Oh yes! Because when we don’t eat it, it becomes leftovers or grains from which something will grow. Because it carries a lot of historical, cultural, political, health contexts. Because after all, what we eat passes through us, creates us and some of our sensory experiences, after which it transforms – let’s not be afraid of the word – into leftovers, excrement. Yes, I’m also a “shit designer” [laughs], I design what falls into your toilet to then become fertilizer, fertilize the soil. When I realized this, I fell in awe. I wondered why no one works with food, and created the term “eating design.” I don’t dare call myself a food designer, because I don’t create food, it is wonderfully designed by nature.
Designing things out of metal or fabric has a way of making objects last. It’s different with food.
It’s true. The vase that sits on the table here can last a hundred years. My projects starring food are ephemeral. They end after they reach your plate, your stomach. A different philosophy is needed when working with food, time is of paramount importance. Anyway, I don’t exactly design the food itself, more the experience of it. My work talks about the act of eating itself, about harvesting, sowing, about interactions during meals. That’s what interests me the most.
One of your first projects was “Funeral Dinner,” a mourning dinner. Food in bright colors, served exclusively in a white setting. Totally in opposition to the prevailing mourning black in Europe.
I was inspired by Asia, there in some countries white is the color of choice for funerals. I love white. When I started researching the topic, I realized that many nations have special dishes for the occasion. But not the Dutch – in our country we simply serve cheese sandwiches and cake. Therefore, I prepared special dishes that we ate with our hands. Neutral ingredients: light bread or rice were the base, but already chicory or cheese brought an element of sharpness and bitterness. Thinking in this way about flavors and colors, I composed this meal.
But in the end you defended yourself in college with something else?
Yes, because I was still worried about whether what I was creating would be accepted. I defended myself in product design and started looking around for a job. No one wanted to hire me, so I started a company on my own. I did mostly catering, and had a lot of orders, especially for Christmas parties. I didn’t like it. Because what, as a designer, can you add to the scheme? Christmas Eve parties themselves are unbearably rich, laced with too many decorations, banal.
Then how did you disenchant this Christmas?
I asked myself: what is their essence. It’s being together, creating community, sharing food and gifts. You don’t need all the ornamentation. And that’s how “Sharing Dinner” was created. It was first held at the Droog design studio in Amsterdam. I hung white fabric over the table. Above each chair I cut holes into which participants stuck their heads. We invited forty strangers. We were very stressed about it. How will it work? Will it work! When you sit with your body hidden behind the fabric, you are just such an eating, talking head. The fabric covering you takes off all context – what you look like, whether you’re fat or thin, how you dress, whether you’re poor or rich. Stripped of these elements of identification, we become more difficult to interpret. That is, in a sense, equal. But we also feel the presence of others, their energy. It went well in Amsterdam, so we repeated this performance in Tokyo. And as you know, the Japanese are very formal, bowing and passing business cards, keeping their distance. We were afraid that some would not stand the tension and leave. But at our table, those blockades quickly let go. Guests became open, communicative, eager to laugh and have fun.
What did they eat?
We served pieces of melon and slices of raw ham, because everyone knows how to handle that. Plus portions of roasted ribs with a head of lettuce with dressing – you had to cut it yourself. And in Japan, people are not used to this, small dishes are served right away to avoid the awkward situation of portioning food on the table. But despite everything, however, man is a social animal, subconsciously knows what to do, how to interact in a group. It worked well in Tokyo, too. In the end there was a big mess on the table and a lot of laughter.
Around this time, however, you decided to become a restaurateur.
To tell you the truth, I decided because it was hard for me to make a living from art actions alone. Piet Hekker, a restaurateur friend, offered me to run a pub, and I said I would rather start a design studio. He assured me that the two could be reconciled. That’s how Proef bistro was founded in Rotterdam, and a year later we opened a branch in the capital. They were tiny places. My studio was located on a mezzanine floor, just above the tables, which moments were quite troublesome, because I could hear every conversation downstairs. I had real, unfiltered feedback! Thanks to this “eavesdropping” I learned and learned a lot, but I also unwillingly learned a few secrets.
As a restaurateur, have you given up on performance?
From there! I immediately did one for the opening. Our guests gave their birth date at the entrance, although they didn’t know why they should do it. That way we learned their zodiac signs, and these are divided, as we know, into water, fire, earth and air signs. Guests were given trays of food matching these elements. Earth – root vegetables with earthy flavors and autumn colors, and mushrooms. Fire – spicy, water – fish, etc. Of course, we didn’t know beforehand who was who, so it was difficult to predict how many servings we needed. Imagine that for the first two hours came the “earth” and “air” alone. – almost all the ingredients for them ran out. After that, however, the “fires” and “waters” arrived, everything balanced out. When I thought about it later, I understood why. Simply put, people under these signs tend to be late!
You’ve done a lot of action around the table and food. What did you learn from them?
First of all, that at the table many truths about people are revealed, consciously or not. Watching how food affects people, or vice versa: how human behavior affects the course of a meal – is amazing. I think dinner is the most perfect form of a small laboratory for testing social relationships.
For example, this dinner for chefs in Hong Kong – that must have been a challenge: hosting so many professionals!
True, I did some thinking about it. What to show in a metropolis composed of glass skyscrapers? In this completely dense urban environment, with virtually no access to land, agriculture? If the bosses don’t have contact with the farmers, we – consuming the dishes made by them – don’t have it all the more. And by eating with cutlery, we further distance ourselves from the food. So I decided to serve the dishes on upturned glasses and asked the chefs to eat without using their hands, just grabbing the food with their mouths. And to make sure they didn’t cheat, I had them hold leeks in their hands. It was an interesting experience, because the smell and visibility of the food were much clearer thanks to the glass pedestals. But not everyone managed to capture the food with their mouths, especially not those with big noses [laughs].
One of your recent projects was “Food Massage Salon.” We liked it because the mouth played an important role in it.
I opted for touch and taste, because we live in a visual culture, eyes and images are more important today. We are constantly looking at our phones, jumping from picture to picture. Alternatively, we touch the screen, and we actually miss a lot to have someone touch us and our bodies. But when we eat, we still use our senses, we stimulate them in non-digital ways. Food is what connects us to the real world.
What did the action consist of?
I hung four hammocks in Berlin’s C/O photography gallery during the “Food for the Eyes” exhibition. It was possible to lie down comfortably in them and undergo the process of sensory-eating care, a bit like in a beauty salon. We covered our guests’ faces, leaving only an opening for their mouths. We put headphones on their ears with a recording of “their own language” speaking to them. And he was a bit annoyed, saying: “Why do you keep using your eyes, after all, I’m here too, since you were little, I’ve been with you. I remember when you ate sand, licked wallpaper. I remember the first time you kissed. I remember your first oyster, and now what, you ignore me? I want to show you what I can do.” The tongue was the guide for this action. And the caregiver-therapist started with a gentle full-body massage, moving toward the face, for which nine sensations were planned. Such a mix of beauty treatments and food experiences. We used a brush to apply yogurt around the mouth, but also on the tongue. Then we rubbed our lips with a sugar-lime-coconut scrub. We asked guests to fish out the tapioca balls with their tongues or lick the tahini paste. We fed them apple cubes, which they gnawed to the rhythm of music with a strong beat in their headphones. At the end, we touched their faces with marshmallows like cotton balls. People were surprised, but also absolutely enchanted. Some, mostly men, cried. They were deeply moved.
Is food design somehow useful to you in your personal life?
Yes! When my children were young, they didn’t want to eat vegetables. I knew that when I put them at the table, they would treat it as a place of oppression and a battlefield. I know from psychology books that children have to try something seven times before they accept a new taste. It’s like learning a foreign language. I invited all my daughters’ kindergarten classmates to the studio. I told them it was a jewelry workshop and that they would be making jewelry from vegetables. They just have to poke carrots and broccoli into the right shapes. And if they do it nicely, they get a prize. No one protested, not a single groan, no spitting out. Everyone had a great time. And one of the boys made a bracelet out of some vegetable, started to nibble on it, mused and sucked on it until he ate it all!
In which of your actions did fun play the biggest role?
I think it was in “Pasta Sauna,” first shown at the Performa Festival in New York in 2009. It was inspired by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s futuristic cookbook from 1932, which condemned pasta because it induces “lethargy, pessimism, nostalgic idleness.” I wanted to allow guests to visit a pasta sauna that would allow them to just be lazy and unproductive, if they felt like it. In a sauna-like cabin stood a ladder, and on it was a pasta machine connected to a music box that played. When the crank was turned, metallic sounds came out. Under it stood a pot of steaming water. Guests were given a ball of dough, climbed the ladder and made their noodles, which immediately fell into the boiling water. They left with a portion of noodles, which they could coat with olive oil, lemon and Parmesan cheese. Totally comfort food and great fun! Could there be anything more enjoyable?
MARIJE VOGELZANG
Dutch designer, or more precisely “eating designer.” She has been working with food as an activity in her design process for nearly 20 years. During this time she has realized more than 50 circular actions, projects, workshops and exhibitions. She is head of the Food non Food department at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, her Alma Mater. In 2016, she initiated the Dutch Institute of Food & Design.
Interviewed by Monika Brzywczy, photos press materials.
The interview came courtesy of the Content Story Foundation on the eve of the Undiscovered – stories about experience conference.
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