EXHIBITIONS AS KNOWLEDGE, INSPIRATION AND MOTIVATION¶
BDC OPEN DAYS¶
Open days came to the BDC and we were asked as Fabricademy students to present our final projects to the people that come. That week we were in a rush in order to have many things to present as we didn’t have too many because it was in beginning of February! However having this “deadline” was a good task as made us realize how our project is going, the links between the different parts and the local area; which was the flow but not just in the way of organizing the exhibition, but also in the storytelling; and the most important: how personal and different are our projects and how much effort and passion we are putting in them.
We had a few visitors the first day and we were able to present them our projects. For me this was a training to develop my speech around the vegan world to people who are not but can benefit from it. However it was the people who already knew what the food were who I enjoyed talking to the most. I realized that many were a little unwilling to the word “vegan” and looked at the food I gave to try with uncertainty and curiosity as if they were being cooked in another world.
For my table I organized the food experiments by the flavors and workflow, starting with my research from books and ending in the food waste menage experimentations that was closing the circle.
As I just had one big bowl from the tempeh and kombucha biomaterial, only one recipe was served in them. For me it was very important to give food to try even if the recipes weren’t improved; to let them know that this is a real thing to work with, that they are totally edible and yummy; and to make visible how with just two main fermentations techniques we can create many recipes and types of food, reusing the properties, flavors and waste.
And furthermore, by giving food to try I’m connecting with the user by almost the five senses: see (the textures, the colors, if liquid or solid, the distribution, the shapes…), touch (the biomaterial, the food and analyze if the first sight was right), smell (the fermentation scent, the coffee, the mushroomy smell that reminds us as an earthy an umami flavor…), the hearing (by pouring a glass of kombucha, the bubbles breaking, the creamy cashew cheese trying to stick to the spoon…) and finally the taste (where touch is improved by the tongue; with a smokey flavor of the caramelization of the tempeh, the perfect balance between acidity and sweetness from the kombucha…). With just one project I can get closer to all five human senses and after the fist open day, I realized that those who tried the food where more attached with the project, idea and maybe they’ll remind it more.
FIRST TRIAL AND FEEDBACK¶
Here are some few notes that I took from those tests:
TEMPEH
Just one person knew about it because they ate it in Indonesia. This person was willed to try everything because they already taste it before. She liked them very much! Two professors tried both and were impressed that it tasted good. They listen to every part of the project and looked at everything with curiosity. All of them though that it was going to be sweet but no (except from the granola) This liked them.
Maple Syrup tempeh:
- Good texture
- Amazing
- Adele prefered this one
Coffee tempeh
- Betiana’s and my favorite
- Leaves a smokey final flavor
Granola
- People tend to go to the granola as one word they knew and because there was more to try.
- Curious
- The chocolate kills a little bit the whole mushroomy flavor
- Better if crunchy
KOMBUCHA
All of them taste so much better when cold
Coffee kombucha
- Just one girl that usually drinks it, tried it. She could taste the coffee flavor and she liked it!
- Betiana liked it
- Julian liked it and it reminded him of the tamarind
Maple Syrup kombucha
- My favorite and Betianas
- Good balance of acid and sweet
CASHEW CHEESE
I have the feeling that the word vegan push them back; tried “cashew cream”. Just my colleges try it when it was close to lunch time.
I need to improve the recipe with spices. I thought it was going to have a more coffee flavor but it din’t, so at the end it was a little bland. I’ll try mixing the fermented cream with other spices, mold it and let it ferment more at the fridge in order to achieve a harder texture (as much time it spends on the fridge the harder it gets) and better flavor.
A TRIP TO LONDON¶
I went to London to exhibit from the 6th to the 10th of February and I had some of free time to explore the vegan world around this city (not everything was work haha). London is known as one the main cities for the vegan community. They celebrate Veganuary, have plenty of options in regular restaurants and accept the word and lifestyle without all those criticisms and no funny jokes.
I was amazed by all of this, specially at how many options I had to eat: it wasn’t an impossible mission. I visited different restaurants and places that I wanted to go for a long time as “Plants by Deliciously Ella”; “The Arty Vegan Tofu” a little zero-waste shop where they make their own cheeses and tofu and where they reuse the pulp (okara) and make other foods (bread, granola, biscuits..); organic supermarkets which sell artisanal tempeh from ClubCultured (a business who brought closer this ferment and made it cool)… Moreover I could find several services that deliver plant-based meals to your house; messages of awareness… It was a dream haha
But also, during the exhibition I was so happy and excited to have talked to many interesting people from all around the world. Some of them gave me their perspective of how they see design, sustainability and new projects like mine (I was presenting Ma-ka by the way). They see bio-design as the future, as a clever idea to approach to “ordinary” things and make them special, valuable and also aesthetic. Getting to know my stand colleges was the greatest thing of that experience as our values around design, consumption and planet health awareness was the same: so we got on since the beginning.
I’m sure that many people who came at the Surface Design Show, didn’t expect to find this stand but all of them left it saying out loud how interesting and amazing our projects were. Maybe this part of the story seems to be irrelevant to Fabricademy’s project, but for me, all this perspectives and compliments gave me the motivation and strength to keep fighting for what we came to do here: moving to the paths were things are being changed in a way of finding a life in symbiosis. So thank you to all the people that opened to me, ask me and encourage me to continue.
But I couldn’t finish my trip’s story without writing about how I met the chef Douglas McMaster, owner of Silo: the first Zero Waste restaurant. I had the courage to approach to him and talk about my work (after being a fan girl of course). I explained him why I was there but my main objective was talking about this project. He was in a rush but when I mentioned that I was fermenting food in order to achieve a circular restaurant I got his attention and was really impressed on how I joint tempeh and kombucha to make my menage. I gave hime my visit card but I know that I’ll need to talk to him once I have develop more my project, who knows if he would be interested to apply it to his restaurant (hihihi).
But right after that, Nina from Nina&Co, an interior designer that develop the space of Silo; came upstairs in order to talk to me. She was interested on what I was doing and I think also on how I approach to Douglas (they were talking). Her projects are a perfect example on how we can approach sustainability in furniture and make a whole ecosystem in a space. After talking to her, we decided to keep talking and make something together!
SILO restaurant was one of the main role models to follow for the development of this project. Joining design and food in order to create a space in coherence with the values that they follow: sustainability, localism, organic, living, health... They even have their own book: The Zero Waste Blueprint, a foodsystem for the future.
SUCULENTA'S FERMENTISTS MEETING¶
The day before going to London, I went to Suculenta, a vegan shop where they sell organic fruit and vegetables, beans and seeds in bulk; a wide range of homemade prepared food and a daily menu. They are practically new in Bilbao and the girls who run it are wonderful. I explained them a little bit what I was doing for Fabricademy and they were very curious and interested about if they could sell it in their shop. This made me realize that I would need a special certificate that allows me to interact with food. However I told them that I needed to check that but that I would bring them some of my tempeh so they could test how different it is from the bought one. I gave them a tempeh made of chickpeas, cashews and a little bit of cacao nibs and told them how to cook it (find my recipes here).
After a couple of days they wrote me telling me that they loved it and that they shared it with a couple who are working also with ferments and were really impressed and interested! So they invited me to their ferment meeting to taste different kind of foods. It was a great opportunity to open my work, make contacts and collect feedback from people who understand this world. And if for some reason it doesn’t happen, this proposition open my mind for a colaboration which I explain here.
METRO¶
From March to the end of May our projects were exhibited in different metro stations. Everytime I went in the metro it was really surprising and grateful for being able to do this project and present it to everyone. Although the photo which was published was after the mid presentation and a lot changed from that point (specially the aesthetics), it has a lot of power.
FINAL EXHIBITION & DEIA¶
After the final presentation and exhibition, a writer from Deia, a local newspaper. An article was writen telling about the experience and a detailed explanation of our projects: The first graduating class of creators graduates at Güeñes
ISOLA¶
As part of the BDC we were invited to exhibit our project in ISOLA as part of the Milan's Design Week, happening from the 6th to 12th of June. The BDC will have its own space from a biofabrication perspective and will save a space for us.
Exhibiting with ISOLA means being part of the designers community as we needed to upload the project to its webpage. There you could find several recent project from students or professional studios.