Eating is an experience that goes well beyond functionality: it represents who we were, who we are, and who we aspire to be as individuals and a society. Our choice of food, how we grow it, where we buy it, how we prepare it, who we share it with, and how we dispose of it, is one of the most compelling and controversial subjects of our era. So much so that a new creative field—eating designer—has emerged to shed light on the environmental, psychological, emotional and social dimensions of this deceptively simple act.

The maxim ‘you are what you eat’ couldn’t be a more suitable tagline for Dutch designer Marije Vogelzang. A pioneer of a new creative hybrid, she grows experiences using food as her medium. Like a farmer who harvests edible ideas, Vogelzang uses delightful, interactive installations to bring more than sustenance—fodder in the form of stories, history and sociability is brought to the table as well. By making food that resembles soil, inviting guests to pick and eat vegetables straight out of the earth, and creating clothes that sprout herbs, she’s planted the principles of farming in a new cultural context, giving it a fresh, fertile frame in which to grow.