Food, Culture, Craft
PROJECT 1:
How does cuisine and food memories connect individuals to their culture?
Exploration of this question
through the methodology
“cook and talk,” two
in-depth interviews, and
collective “hometown”
recipe cooking—using food
to trigger memories and
open conversations about
culture.
The project culminated in a
booklet and two videos.
PROJECT 2:
How does slow craft bring people together?
Exploration of this question through communal workshops crafting kitchen utensils, culminating in a participatory lunch. The aim
was to create every element of the meal from scratch with the same group, and reflect on its impact on individual connections.
Both projects began with food, but unfolded as explorations of how human interaction itself becomes a form of
research. In the first, I engaged with families through cooking, conversation, and memory, using methods like
participant observation and cultural probes to uncover how cuisine ties individuals to identity and heritage. In
the second, I turned to craft as a communal language—building clay stoves, carving utensils, shaping
pottery—culminated in a shared meal where every object and gesture carried the imprint of collective time.
Together, these works revealed that research need not remain confined to books or screens. Food, whether
prepared in a kitchen or crafted into tools, became both method and medium: a way to listen, to connect,
and to access layers of culture that only emerge through embodied, shared experience.