Food or Bioplastics?
is communicating a criticism on the rationality of the use of edible food-based materials in the production of bioplastics.
It raises a question in a simple but provoking way, what if the production of food-based material bioplastics results in having abundance of plastics made of food but not the food itself? The work uses the potato as an example and potato starch as the material of the created objects, as starch is a key ingredient of the different food crops used in bio-plastics. The scenarios have caged the potato into its plastic package out of reach and turned the familiar foods into hollow plastic shapes.
Using the edible parts of the food crops instead of the sideflows and surplus materials of the agricultural processes makes a major difference. So does the use of food crops, for example corn, sugar and potato, for producing plastics make sense? It may be called bio, but is it environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable? Studies have shown problematic causes also with the bio-based microplastics. How does using food crops for plastics fit in the present and future scenarios of agriculture challenged by climate problems and the unequality of food distribution? Why use all those resources needed to cultivate the food materials for producing mostly throw-away packages?
Food or Bioplastics? 2020.
Design and photography: Ilana Vähätupa
The work was created as a part of a design MA thesis ”Food or Bioplastics? Material critique through discursive design” at Savonia University of Applied Sciences in 2020.
All you can have
Less for you – more for others and the planet
All you can have – four tiny fruits combined into one fruit covering our daily vitamins from fruit – is a critical concept that aims to address way we take food for granted by suggesting one has to settle for less. It also asks the question could the issues of food production affect everyone of us even when we´re surrounded with the imagined abundance of food. Regardless of our machine-like industrial farming and production our food systems rely on nature´s systems and balance. All you can have -concept aims to ignite reflective and critical thinking around nature´s limits and the common mindset of the thriftier people that we are automatically entitled to things.
The tiny compressed fruit including an orange, an apple, a banana and a pear are packed into boxes containing seven fruit pieces for each day of the week. Along with the environmental and ethical points of view, and speculating on genetic engineering, the consept is proposing an easier way to consume, and to cultivate and ship, the daily amount of fruits recommended. The cutified product and the somewhat scary vision of the future, suggesting we need to change our thinking and habits around something as profound as food, is addressing our connection to nature from two sides. The nature needs our attention and tending, but it is also the force that rules us and which we depend on. If our actions change the nature then we need to change too.
All You Can Have. 2021.
Design and photography: Ilana Vähätupa
The work was created during a critical design seminar and workshop by DelaO design studio in 2021 and is also featured in DelaO’s publication Products of Change (2022).
UNDISNON DESIGN
