Chapter Overview

like their 2019 “Food: Bigger than the plate”. This exhibition invited visitors to taste, smell and debate experimental ideas about redesigning the food system13 . These are just a few examples; all over the globe, there are organisations, charities, social enterprises, designers and even communities trying to redesign the food system. However, this drive for change is not a new phenomenon; citizens, groups, and even organisations have been attempting to impact the way the food system works through counter-culture, climate action, individual choice, and even political acts since the post-industrial era. This dissertation will explore that historical journey and evaluate the cyclical nature of these ideas and aspirations. As well as assessing the effectiveness of the global food system in resisting change. I will then focus on the present day and assess the new methods of design that have emerged and merged with social sciences such as anthropology and sociology to tackle wicked socioeconomic problems such as food. Through primary research case studies, this dissertation will be looking at these participatory designs. These methods are being used to change food systems at local levels to counter-act the global, and I will seek to evaluate if they are more effective than previous past interventions.

Chapter Overview This dissertation is split into key sections; section one focuses on the historical nature of the food system and food culture, section two looks at the present-day culture and evaluates what has changed, and section three evaluates whether design methods might be the intervention that makes the changes needed to our food system. As a whole, I hope to capture the landscape of food from the 1960s to the present day, unpicking the recurrent theme of people wanting food system change against the backdrop of a powerful and influential global food system. I conclude with my evaluation and some recommendations for the future of food redesign, both for my practice and for other designers. This is a topic I am passionate about for the reasons cited above, food could be the key to many social changes in the UK, and I believe redesigning it will support the improvement of people’s lives. Having worked in the food manufacturing industry I find the global food system model fascinating. However, as a designer now, engaged and working in food systems, I started to consider how the present-day feels like we are at the forefront of something new. We are changing the system, but are we really! This led me to try to understand what had happened before. I am here to question whether we have exhausted the options. Is the system too big to change or can design methods be the key to more considerable systemic change?

13 V&A Museum. 2019. “V&a · FOOD: Bigger than the Plate - Exhibition at South Kensington 7