EAT-HDK

EAT-Food culture, Materiality and Design / autumn 2025

EAT in exhibition at AGA - Art Gallery of Alberta

Group exhibition: deleTABLE: The Future and Fragility of food

Students from EAT autumn 2024 are showing images from their Food - Design projects.

Link to exhibition

Through art, design and food culture, we can explore and make sense of our history, present, and future. These realms reach both the most vulnerable and the most intimate aspects of our existence—our survival, our pleasure. Food becomes a tool to critically examine the world around us, opening space for engagement with ongoing discourses.

Art is more vital today than ever, offering resistance, support, new possibilities. We must ground ourselves in its imaginative power, crafting narratives where food culture holds a central place in everyone’s life. Food unites us in a planetary melting pot, where the senses take over, and art becomes our language.

We are honoured to be part of this exhibition and hope our participation contributes to an impact that makes necessary change possible.

Let us invite one another—tasting our way toward a shared, sustainable future.

Digesting Knowledge

The Curves and Edges of Indulgence

Kiki and Boba

Banquet of the Binned

Le Déchet Gourmet

ctrl + alt + del

BACK 2 THE SANDBOX

The Perfect Spoon (Doris A.)

The spoon interacts with one of the most nerve-dense parts of the body: the lips, which detect even the slightest unevenness, grain tear-out, or sharp edges. Interestingly, the word "spoon" originates from cochlea in Greek and Latin, meaning "spiral shell," as early spoons were often made from shells. Adding bones as handles marked the evolution of the spoon as we know it today.

This history and the sensitivity of the lips inspired my exploration: is a handle truly necessary for a spoon? If the oval bowl is the primary functional component, couldn’t anything serve as a spoon? Why not a bottle cap? It’s accessible, lacks a handle, but can still scoop and hold food.

My experiment proved successful: you can eat with a bottle cap. However, it’s inconvenient. Without a handle, hands get dirty, eating is slower, and the cap’s limited size reduces its practicality.

I have worked with two different projects, both centered around the use of candy as a material. The first project, which I titled Untitled (In your mouth, in your mind) was made for an exhibition I had together with a few classmates. I didn’t particularly want to participate with an artwork for the exhibition but rather make a subtle intervention which interacted with my colleagues' works. This resulted in me making lollipops with the shape of the artists’ thumbs that were exhibiting their work in the gallery space. I wanted to create an intimate connection between the viewer and the artist, while also playing with their power dynamics. How will the viewer's perception and reflections shift as they simultaneously consume both the artists’ "thumbs" and their art? 

Isa Mårtensson Liljegren

Untitled (In your mouth, in your mind)

Casting of the artists’ thumbs, sugar, glucose syrup, water, tutti frutti flavouring

For my second project I worked with marshmallows as a material drawing inspiration from the phrase Sweet dreams. Reflecting both on periods in my life where I struggled with insomnia and also the softness of the material, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to make a pillow entirely out of marshmallows. Would I finally be able to sleep? Would my dreams become sweeter?

This project is still a work in progress. My current plan is to create a marshmallow pillow infused with lavender, then sleep on it for at least a week while simultaneously keeping a detailed dream journal. The work combines text with the intimacy of the bed and the dream realm as a deeply personal and private space. Eventually, I want to invite the public to eat the pillow. What do my dreams taste like?

Yes! The EAT course is up and running. Great new group of students. The first two days in the course we had introduction with lecture on photo light by Emanuel Cederqvist and a leftover photoshoot in the studio at HDK-Valand. Day two we went to Ljurhallafabriken on study visit. Rachel and Nathan presented their work and the place and we cooked together.

For months I’ve waited in anticipation for the start of Eat: Food Culture, Materiality, and Design. My own recent experience as a professional baker, my academic work in the social psychology of food and sustainability, and nearly twenty years of working as a graphic designer all seem to have led me to this perfect moment.

BEING EATEN - Jonathan Borg’s “The Human Sushi”

Have you ever been afraid of being eaten? Probably not. Being the most powerful and superior of all species, humans never have to worry about their demise in terms of being eaten. Animals on the other hand, always live under the threat that they, at any time, could end up on our plates.

- What is food and what is body? - Which is the role of man in modern overconsumtion society? - How can humans be humble towards our surroundings and other species, which we performatively turn into food with commonplace speeches and nonverbal communications?

READ MORE: https://docdro.id/DZmEDf3