Malu Luecking

Landless Food, MA Biodesign, Winner, 2022

We’re in the year 2050. Agriculture as we know it barely exists anymore. Biodiversity has deteriorated with human consumerism and the impacts of climate change. Further crises have arisen after overfishing depleted fish stocks and the extinction of bees caused the disappearance of many flowering plants and herbs. Our spectrum of natural flavours has been significantly reduced. This loss of agro-biodiversity not only endangers human health, but also the spirituality and cultural importance of culinary traditions.

This project, Landless Food, proposes a regeneration of humanity’s food system by introducing a new family of flavours that put our culinary memories back on the table. These are based on microalgae, which have recently come into focus for research on the variety of tastes that can be diversified and refined by manipulating their metabolisms. The first results are a line of seafood flavours and a floral spice.

For this, local strains of microalgae have been cultivated on edible gel-like objects. After two weeks the algae can be harvested and freshly consumed. Landless Food presents six food objects as reincarnations of three types of lost flavours. While the shapes of the food are partly unfamiliar, the tools that are designed to eat these objects relate back to the long extinct resources of the taste.

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