Carve or Starve

Innovation is not always what you think it is. We welcome you to our project that aims to engage in a debate about hand-made food and tools. The “industrial way” of organizing our food production, transforming the landscapes into large monocultures, using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fossil fuel based farming equipment, is extremely harmful to all natural systems. We end up eating food containing chemicals that is required for the systematic loop. Equipped with nothing but a carving knife and a piece of linden wood, the task put before us was to develop and carve a wooden device that engages in activities supporting a local, cyclic food chain.

As Industrial Designers, more familiar with 3D modelling and sketch-pads, carving gives a tangible and humble value to the design-process. The only thing going to waste is time and the energy from our very own “machinery”, our bodies, leaving nothing but wood chips behind. We ask: What is the value of a hand-made creation in 2014? Can a hand-made device help us to reconnect to the food we eat and its origin?