MaMA 

“Kids think that cereals are a side product of the toy you find in the box and that luncheon meat grows on trees in slices, with a clown face on it.”

“There’s a thing that happens quite often: An interesting exhibition is planned and the curator likes the idea that there’s ‘food’ involved (curators like to use the English term ‘food’ instead of the Dutch term ‘eten’). Very often, I got asked to do this. I am always very flattered, but where my colleague product designers come up with a chair, a vase or a ping-pong ball I work with materials that decay. Food goes bad and has to be fresh and hygienically prepared. Often, in the end, the decision is made that I will perform at the opening night, because, so figures the curator, “that’s easy, and we needed snacks anyway.”

Because it can’t be that eating design is mixed up with catering, MAMA offers Marije Vogelzang her first solo-exhibition. Marije presents an overview of her past, present and future work by showing sketches, videos, animations and installations (that you can actually eat).

Therefore we even turned a part of our showroom into a refrigerator, in order to prevent the woolen sausage going bad. Woolen sausage? Yes. And think of fresh baked leaves and a marshmallow sculpture and you’re quite close. But not there yet.

“For a lot of people designing food is all about the appearance. There’s a big gap between designers who design shape and chefs producing flavor. I try to cross over these two things, and at the same time not only to look at the taste and shape, but also have a look at the story behind the food,” says Marije in a lecture at Design Inbada 2008, all the way in South Africa. Marije does go abroad further and more often lately. Next to South Africa, she was recently invited to Beirut ,Lebanon, where she gave a series of workshops and a lecture based on the local eating habits and the social history of the country.

“The design will be absorbed by the body of the user and becomes part of it. About what material you can say that? It’s the closest you can get to a spectator.”

In fact, Marije prefers to be called an ‘eating designer’. She turns the entire experience into an event that challenges our preconceptions about food, like associating the colors of food with emotions. She emphasizes the context of food, as well as referring to it’s psychological and sociological aspects. Next to texture, smell, taste and color, she also deals with origin, table rituals and scarcity of food. Therefore ‘eating designer’ does seem like a more appropriate description. Still, you can’t call her a caterer.

Be our guest… and taste it!