Entangled Taste: Forgotten Collaborators

Collaboration as Invisible yet Essential Relations

This project visualizes the invisible yet essential collaborations between human and non-human beings within traditional Korean food practices. Food is not simply the result of human intention but a process of co-creation shaped within a cosmic order, where humans, microbes, and wind come together.

Installations as Sensory Encounters

Visitors encounter two installations. Kimjang Chronotope features a mat guiding the timeline of making Kimchi, onto which a video of microbes is projected. It sensorially expresses the entangled dynamics between human hands and microbial communities during fermentation. Visitors are invited to re-sense microbes as active agents in shaping taste, culture, and memory. Radish Trace Anemotope recalls the communal practice of drying radishes on Daeseom Island, where wind was once an indispensable collaborator. Due to illegal development, the wind stopped flowing and the tradition disappeared. This work revives the multisensory memory of a ritual co-created by wind and human hands. Each installation also includes a small tasting of Kimchi and wind-dried radish as part of the sensory experience.

From Nostalgia to Vision: Reframing Food-Making as Co-Creation

Through these encounters, visitors are invited to experience fermentation and drying through the senses, as co-creation. The project does not dwell in nostalgia but reveals collaborative relations among multispecies beings that have sustained cultural continuity. Its vision is to reframe food-making as co-creation emerging from multispecies entanglements, not human centrality. For those who wish to extend the experience, visitors can also taste food made with kimchi and dried radish at Rabauw Brewpub (Vestdijk 280, 5611 CZ Eindhoven).