Crit Review & Reflections

My recreated Anzac soldier's diets sought to give people who hadn't experienced the war first hand, a small feeling of what it was like to be in it.

The context was that younger NZers did not know much about the war. The frequent exposure to gore, brutality and tragedy through sensationalized media has resulted in a desensitized culture, rending previous methods of immersion, such as reading a book or watching a documentary, less effective.

I am proposing the use of food (with its engagement of all five senses) as a method of engaging with our desensitized society.

I'm beginning to tie my research in tighter by proposing the question: How can food and experiential design create empathy within a desensitized contemporary culture?

Marije Vogelzang on connecting people with food, creating an understanding.

Storytelling and Food

http://appetite.ketchum.com/content/finding-human-element-food-storytelling

So, how do you find the human element in your food story, and feed the craving the public has to better understand the people who stock their pantries and feed their families?   Consider these storytelling techniques: 

• Size Doesn’t Matter – Whether it’s a backyard garden, a local farm or a large regional operation, food is grown by people who do this work for a reason. It’s their chosen profession, and they’re probably passionate about what they do. Move beyond labels of “big,” “small” and “local” to focus on the individual people who make up your operation.    Like any good writer, probe for the “why?” Why do your people do what they do? What motivates them? This is the story local farmers tell so well.  
• Celebrate Your Heroes - Who is the protagonist in your story? Who are the “doers?” Read great stories about local farms and study the characters that make up the story. Heck, go back and read “Johnny Appleseed” again. There is often a strong personality at the center of a compelling food story with deep personal conviction who had a great idea or overcame a significant challenge. Who are the people in your operation who have those heroic qualities, and how can you highlight their work?  
• Drop the Jargon and Have a Conversation - One of the best things that advocates of the local food movement have done is to talk to people face-to-face at farmers markets and in the fields. By comparison, larger operations can tend to default to jargon or buzz words that are devoid of emotion. Food is perhaps one of the most passionate and evocative topics in any culture. Redline the buzz words and let the personal passion of “the doers” – your true believers and storytellers – drive the conversation.
• Broaden the Spotlight - The food product is important – but, food by itself is just organic matter. Stories are about people and communities, and in the end, the food is just a prop in the bigger storyline. Take a step back and observe the bigger story. What elements of the farm to table process would surprise or intrigue a consumer, and ultimately increase their enjoyment of the product? What might seem commonplace to you may be a revelation to your audience.  
• Understand the Audience – Most consumers are less interested in the politics of food, and more interested in whether the food is tasty, nutritious and safe to feed the family.   Consumers are seeking trust in an increasingly impersonal world. Several generations ago, we trusted the milk man to deliver the milk we needed to our doorstep. That desire to trust the people who feed our families has not changed. By highlighting the human element in your food story, you can go a long way towards building those bonds of trust.  

A bite of history & a taste of home

Anzac Day eve: the most intensive procrastination plan hits me.

I would recreate the diets of Anzac soldiers to give people a taste of what the soldiers experienced during the war.

In contrast, they would also receive an Anzac biscuit, and be told about its origins.

A Bite of History

• Hardtack cracker (lasts for 50 years!) 
• Bully beef (corned beef) 
• Jam 

A taste of what New Zealand soldiers in WW1 ate daily, monotonously.

Their diet has been cited to have been lacking in fruits and vegetables and resulted in malnutrition amongst troupes.

Soldiers hated the crackers, commenting that it was like “biting into a rock”.

A Taste of Home 

• Anzac biscuit 

Anzac biscuits were made by the soldiers’ wives and sent as a replacement for hardtack crackers.

For WW1 veterans, these two tastes conjure up vivid memories of their time in the war.

Food serves as a marker of memory.

So that was the plan.

However shit turned to a massacre when all the little bites that was prepared ended up looking like a bloody battle after all the transportation and their delicate natures.

So improvisation happened and I simple approached people and asked two questions:

1. What is your strongest memory associated with food?
2. What is your favourite food to make? Why?

And this is what I found:

People have strong memories associated with food. Some of the most popular were associating food with family, and more specifically mom. There was also quite a few with celebrations, such as Christmas dinner, cultural festival and birthdays.

It was quite easy to tell who liked to cook based on their answer from their first question. Those who did not like cooking made no excuses for it and their stories are often related to something humourous happening to food rather than consuming it. For example, a candidate who’s favourite meal to make is ‘toast’ told her memory as when her flatmate tried and hilariously failed to make egg fried rice. Another candidate who liked to make ‘stir fry’ as it was ‘easy and quick’ has a memory when her brother microwaved a pie for 20 minutes and it exploding everywhere.

It was really fascinating hearing the memories people. They could be catagorized into:

1. Time—routine, time of life, one off
2. Place—specific source, location, home
3. People—friends, family

These three factors in different ratios formed the vast majority stories. People never told stories where taste was the only thing they talked about. This proves that food and the memory of it is so much more than sustenance and bodily health that people claim. 

Food provides unplanned stories of our lives.

IKEA homemade is best.

Carl Kliener—photographer.

Beautiful, non traditional, calculative approach to what is normally portrayed as quite organic (home cooking).

Looking at things etc.

Sushi cupcakes.
by Anjelika Paranjpe.

'Healthy' to 'unheathy'.

GriottesPantone colour chart.

Applying familiar language to different world. New lens type thing. What I might want to do with food and the digital medium—specifically television/internet.

Pixel food. Food is organic and viewing it in such a manmade precise sort of way removes it from its usual appetizing sort of context.

Alice in Wonderland esque. Messages on food like Marije Vogelzang's cupcakes with a lack of attention. Textual manipulation of choices.

Cauliflower clouds.

Brock Davis. 

You can tell he's in advertising.

Taking photos of things on screen, emphasising pixel and element of unreality.

Interesting angles of food. I want to put a screw into that watermelon.

Things in a jar!

Cute, studentey type feel to it.

Lucky Peach Magazine.

 

Fruit stickers that came with an issue. Sort of like combining thoughts/conversation with food. Comments like "surprisingly sticky". Textual play. Revert back to Marije's cupcakes.

Sam Trubridge.

Very interesting performance piece. Wish I was able to see it, but yes. Intruiging!

Audience at Semi Permanent whilst Storm Thogerson does his talk.
Community, social aspect. Recontextualising food.

Modern Art Desserts

Caitlin Freeman.

Really interesting art projects with food.