Kolding designers at the Porto Design Biennale 

The biennale intends to stimulate the debate around design’s ability to outline new solutions for collective problems. Turning the focus to the value of design practice, revealing its ability to question reality, challenge complexity and propose concepts and adaptations for a closer and fairer world. The theme this year is “Alter-Realities: Designing the Present” and it is curated by Alastair Fuad-Luke.

The former Design for People student Roseanne Kimber and Design for Planet student Patricia Csobánczi were contacted directly by the organisers of Porto Design Biennale asking if they would be able to present their project ‘Co-Creating Everyday Foods – with Insects and Seaweed!’

The project was created during the Design for Behavioral Change MA course at Design School Kolding, supervised by Professors Eva Brandt and Thomas Binder. It is inspired by the phrase ‘Futurivore’ which refers to an animal or person that eats food of both plant and animal origin with a future perspective in mind.

- We explored the transition to sustainable food ingredients through participatory design with a focus on sensorial exploration and future speculation. For the biennale, we will be joining 'Colloquium IV – Animating everyday heterotopias' which is dedicated to exploring forms of everyday heterotopias that can contribute to the creation of new possibilities and paths to grasp different ways of thinking and being in the world. This is part of the Peripheral Perspectives, a series of colloquia to bring together interdisciplinary academics with non-academic thinkers, diverse practitioners (designers, visual and performative artists, and others), and citizens, Roseanne Kimber and Patricia Csobánczi explain.

To prepare for their presentation, Roseanne Kimber and Patricia Csobánczi are meeting online. They both have busy careers and live in different cities. Patricia currently works at Growing Pathways, a human-nature relations and urban ecology agency, where she prototypes future neighbourhoods through biodiversity enhancement, learning journey development with citizens and sensitizing methods.

Roseanne works at LEGO as a UX/UI Designer, where she conducts user research and prototyping to create experiences for kids. In her spare time she runs a small design/craft studio where she makes kits and workshops, inspired by how the senses can help to support our wellbeing.

The young designers are thrilled to be asked to join the biennale:

- It was such an unexpected honour, a really great feeling. We think our project was picked because it aligned well with the overall topic of the conference and our take on food and culture. We look very much forward to connecting with other like-minded researchers and designers and discuss the future possibilities.

The Design Biennale takes place 2-23 July, partly online and partly in Porto, Portugal.
The talk ‘Co-Creating Everyday Foods – with Insects and Seaweed!’ can be seen online on July 23rd (18:00-20:00, CEST).