04.05.2020
14 – 16h Lectures & Q&A
In recent decades the way milk, meat, eggs, cereals and vegetables are produced in Europe has changed fundamentally. The new agricultural system – modern agriculture, some call it, agro-industry, others call it – is based on the principles of industry: intensification, and mechanisation, specialisation and standardisation.
The collateral damage of this development: farm deaths, endangerment of natural resources, loss of biodiversity and agricultural culture. Desperate farmers, suffering animals, outraged city dwellers – but cheap raw materials for the food industry.
The solution: Saving agricultural culture and bringing together sustainable solar agriculture, biodiversity, healthy nutrition, participation and the common good economy on an equal footing. It is not the laboratory meat of large corporations, but the rural avant-garde that will secure the food of the future.
Dr. Tanja Busse is a journalist and philosopher. She works as a freelance presenter, author and journalist for various newspapers and as a curator. She is Fellow of the DFG Research Group on the Future of Sustainability at the University of Hamburg. Books: „The Disposable Cow“, „The Death of Others. How we can still save Biological Diversity“.
In the living soil of the earth, in the thin layer of the topsoil, miriads of mostly microscopic animals, plants, fungi and bacteria ensure their fertility. They decompose the dead material on the soils, incorporate it into the soil, provide the plants with nutrients, keep the water balance in equilibrium and ensure temperature equalization. They nourish everything that lives on and from the soil. In doing so, they build up humus and thus incorporate carbon into the soil. Soil life stores greenhouse gases permanently in the soil. When we damage soil life, we release greenhouse gases. If we protect and promote soil life, we are actively protecting the climate.
Florian Schwinn is a journalist, radio host and author of several books, such as „Rettet den Boden – Warum wir um das Leben unter unseren Füßen kämpfen müssen“ („Save the Soil – Why we must fight for the life beneath our feet“).
04.05.2020
14 – 16h Lectures & Q&A
In 2016, the Berlin state government has set itself the goal in its coalition agreement of significantly increasing the proportion of organic food in day-care centres, schools, canteens, refectories and catering in public institutions. To this end, a model project was to be launched which, through training and advice, would show how canteen kitchens and caterers can cook with more organic, fresh and seasonal products. The Kantine Zukunft Berlin is this project. Copenhagen was the godfather with its long and successful work. Currently, 9 chefs and scientists* are working on developing the Danish idea into a Berlin model. Through inspiration, support and advice, the kitchens are to be helped to develop a modern offer that increases good food for the guests and the demand for bio-regional food for the Berlin region.
Dr. Philipp Stierand is a spatial planner and has worked in the natural food industry for almost two decades. He did a part-time doctorate on the relationship between the city and nutrition. Philipp Stierand is the founder of the blog Speiseräume (Dining Rooms), which has been in existence for 10 years, managing director of the consulting company Speiseräume and head of the Kantine Zukunft Berlin. He holds a lectureship for agricultural and food policy at the DHBW Heilbronn.
Marco Clausen describes the beginnings and development of the Prinzessinnengarten at Moritzplatz since 2009 and the defense of this green open space against privatisation and investor plans. In his view, the role of urban gardens is less about local self-sufficiency than about their function as places of exchange and learning. How can we make the relationship between cities and regional and global rural areas more ecologically and socially just in the face of the climate catastrophe and the mass extinction of species? How can such self-organised places of learning serve to make our impact on rural areas, ways of life and nature visible, other voices audible and alternatives to industrial and agricultural activities conceivable?
Marco Clausen co-founded the „Prinzessinengarten“ in 2009 and the „Nachbarschaftsakademie“ in 2015. Clausen organises events and workshops, international visitor programmes, study and research projects on the topics of the right to the city, urban-rural relations, food sovereignty, socially and ecologically sustainable urban development, common goods and socio-ecological transformation. His special focus is on self-organized forms of collective learning.
Mission: Making food saving mainstream
In Germany every minute a truckload of edible groceries ends up as food waste. SIRPLUS is a social impact startup which brings surplus food back into the cycle and makes it accessible for everyone. What is the story behind our perfectly imperfect products and which level of the supply chain can we target?
Our vision is a world where all produced food is being eaten and everyone has enough to eat. Find out how we can fight food waste together, because we all agree that the status quo is an humanitarian, environmental and economic catastrophe.
SIRPLUS was founded by Raphael Fellmer and Martin Schott. Susanne Zander, the biologist with a master in global change management, is the head of the education department of SIRPLUS. The nutritionist Kay Antje Lorenz and Charlotte Wolf who is doing a voluntary service at the company complete her team. Together they organise workshops, panel discussions and seminars for all kinds of target groups that deal with everything around food waste. In this way they inspire society to rethink its idea of overproduction and overconsumption.
11.05.2020
14 – 16h Lectures and Workshop Kick-offs
Chloé Rutzerveld held two online lectures, accompanied by small exercises:
Lecture 1 – Food Futures – How Design and Technology can Reshape our Food System
Lecture about food design and different ways in which one can use food as a medium to design with or to communicate one’s ideas. Five main themes will be addressed and explained through example projects:
1. Cultured meat, cultural taboes and democratizing technology
2. Food printing, the role of speculative design and rethinking the use of technology
3. Vertical farming & growth-recipes
4. Making smart use of natural characteristics and waste streams
5. Food design for the digestive system
Lecture 2 and Assignments – Radical Future Food Systems
A lecture with focus on alternative ways of feeding our body and the new food systems, rituals and habits that come with it. If we separate the functionality of eating – which is feeding the body – from the sensorial experience the pleasure and the social components of eating many new opportunities arise for the creation of an entirely new sustainable food systems.
Chloé Rutzerveld is food designer / food futurist. She explores and challenges food production and consumption and is fascinated by nature, the human body and the strange relationship people have with food. She studied Industrial Design and combines aspects of design, science and technology in order to make our food more efficient, healthy and sustainable.
Malu provided several lectures and workshop tutorials for the students.
The lectures
How will we produce and provide food in the future when the world population is expected to grow to over 9 billion by 2040, while our water resources become increasingly scarce due to climate change?
After we have addressed this problem, we will take a closer look at three possible solutions in theory and practice:
1. the concept of molecular cuisine – the use of chemical processes in the kitchen;
2. the basic idea of Note by Note cooking – reconstructing food by components;
3. microalgae as the food source of the future in times of water and nutrient scarcity.
Malu Lücking is specialised in material design and sustainable innovation, working at the intersection of design, biology and technology. Her current research focus is on algae as one of the most promising circular materials for our futures. In her lastest projects she investigates how algae can contribute to a more sustainable textile industry.
Which laboratory equipment can be helpful for the realisation of your personal projects? In times of epidemics students are denied access to laboratories and equipment, but, especially, if you want to work with living organisms within your personal project, you often depend on such equipment.
In this optional session students were introduced to the common laboratory equipment, its possible applications and they were shown how to build these tools at home.
Fabian Neumüller is specialised in the development of functional and user-centered products. He incorporates extensive knowledge from mechanical engineering and industrial design into the product development process. Since 2019 he is a Researcher at DXM – Design and Experimental Material Research. As part of the greenlab project Food in the Time of Corona, he supports students with planning and preparation of their 3D printing files as well as prototyping of DIY biofabrication tools to achieve tangible results.
The planned workshop led theoretically and practically into the additive production with semi-fluid, bio-based materials. Initially the process of 3D printing with pastes were presented – from data generation, route calculation for the printer and the actual printing process. This was tangibly demonstrated and some actors as well as interesting projects from within this context were discussed. In the second part students worked in groups on three different tasks, which mainly focus on 3D modeling of smaller objects and concentrated then on geometries for 3D printing. Finally, these results were printed on Friday, 15.5. in Babette’s studio.
Babette Wiezorek is a product designer and works at the interface of material and technology. Her focus is on additive manufacturing (3D printing) with fluid materials, especially with ceramic materials. Her research is based on natural and technical forming processes. She implements organic strategies such as control loops and feedback into 3D printing, thus investigating its potential. She is co-initiator of Additive Addicted.
What is glass? What is its historical and cultural background? How is it produced and processed? What is its material basis, which physical and chemical aspects play a role? Which of its properties make it an excellent material for preparing, storing and enjoying food?
After a short and intensive introduction it went straight into the discussion of the student’s designs and their feasibility in glass. The aim was that on Wednesday, 13.5. a selection of ideas would already take place and that students had submitted working drawings by the weekend, which were then realised on 16./17.5. The production was live streamed and eight ideas were realised.
Peter Kuchinke, trained in southern Sweden and Murano, has been working as a glassmaker, product developer and cooperation partner of artists and designers such as Ettore Sottsass, Gun Lindblad, Cosima von Bonin, Tue Greenfort, Elmgreen+Dragset and Olafur Eliasson since 1986. He teaches at universities in Denmark and Germany and is artistic director of Glass Factory, Boda, Sweden.
18.05.2020
12 – 14h Workshop Kick-off with Q&A
Obtaining food through agriculture instead of gathering and hunting – the Neolithic Revolution – changed the face of the earth and the way people lived together. The society of hunter-gatherers was certainly not a kids‘ birthday party. But it was only through agriculture that roaming became sedentary, that all-rounders became skilled workers, that brawls became war, and disease became epidemics.
Agriculture is still the primary sector today – also in the figurative sense. The vast majority of agricultural production does not take place in the laboratory, not in urban community gardens but in the field. Arable land is one of the most sensitive resources on the planet. How soil should be distributed was one of the major issues of the 20th century. Land reform – that is, a socially just distribution of land – was one of the most popular demands of the political left and right.
After 1945 it was part of the programme of the allied occupying powers of Germany, but was only implemented in the British (hesitant) and Soviet (consistent) occupation zones. In short: Food is political. And it inscribes itself in the geographical space.
In the workshop they tried to collect this knowledge about the space in which food is produced and visualised it in maps. It was about transport routes, corporate structures and the questions of who owns the soil that feeds us.
Since 2008 the collective orangotango has been created in a friendly environment of critical geographers. Their activities focus on critical education, self-organized structures and concrete social, political and artistic interventions that contribute to the reflection and transformation of existing conditions. Central sources of inspiration are their experiences with movement work, political-cultural grassroots work and everyday forms of resistance in Latin America.