As a result of the climate crisis, it is difficult not to wonder what cultural and nutritional changes are called for so that humans may survive? What will be the role of insects, mushrooms and seaweed in our nutrition? What techniques will we use to prepare the foods of the future, and what will they be made of? How can we enrich the sensory experience of eating by means of other senses? And how can heirloom seeds participate in restoring the delicate ecological balance for future generations?

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The works on display in the Design Lab explore the future of our food through the prism of the senses. We were raised to believe that we perceive the surrounding world through only five senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. According to contemporary neuroscientists, however, humans have dozens of senses and sub-senses that work together to process variegated information in the brain. These include senses that transmit information concerning hunger, satiety and thirst, a sense indicating where our different body parts are in relation to one another, and even a sense of movement and acceleration, which enables us to understand the relation of our body to the space we inhabit. 

Although the future has yet to arrive, scientists, researchers and designers are already connecting past and future, extending the limits of the human imagination and revealing the potential embodied in possible futures. 

 

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