AWARD YEAR
2023
CATEGORY
Home
GOALS
Trust, Tolerance & Empathy
KEYWORDS
Critical Design, Speculative Design, eating disorders
COUNTRY
Germany
DESIGNED BY
Yanru Chen
WEBSITE
https://yanruchen.com
A Bite of Anomaly
Experiencing eating disorder cutlery in an empathic way
How does it work?
People with mental or physical eating disorders deserve our attention, care, understanding and support. So I have designed a crockery and cutlery set whose original function is obscured and diminished, replaced by an unconventional form and use that reawakens the empathy and understanding that has been blunted and ignored in the course of use.
Why is it needed?
Many people suffer from eating disorders. Often there is a lack of understanding and thus of appropriate support. By creating a conscious eating situation, guests have the opportunity to empathise with the illness. Cutlery and crockery that are difficult to use make it possible to perceive disorders when eating with one's own body.
How does it improve life?
I wanted to challenge the traditional way we ingest and eat food, but at the same time complicate the process of eating in a playful way that encourages reflection and empathy: everyone knows that the process of eating is pleasurable, but most of us have no doubt that there are people who cannot do anything with this process.
By being able to try to experience the dysfunctional everyday eating process in an unnromal way, the deviant behaviour of people with eating disorders is understood and can gradually be put back on track, as the name 'Ein Bissen Anomalie' suggests.