2024
Rhiannon Raw-Rees
Rhiannon explores food systems and consumption conventions through speculative, performative scenarios, questioning material formation and societal structures. She endeavours to employ humour with criticality to narrate research and worlds linked to technology and climate. With a background in ceramics and food & beverage brand activations, she has worked on experiential events for global brands such as Disney, Pinterest, Bombay Sapphire, and Paco Rabanne.
Thin Air Kitchen
A restaurant experience that serves up emerging scientific developments and consequences of sugar being made from the air
‘THIN AIR KITCHEN’ is a restaurant experience that serves up emerging scientific developments and consequences of sugar being made from the air, through a three-course tasting menu.
Synthetic food dominates our cultural landscape, sugar being at the forefront. So, what does sugar made from the air mean? Sourced from Carbon dioxide, harnessing a surplus and damaging material to create something arguably just as damaging for humans. With heavy investment by Coca-Cola and NASA to make the sugar consumable, who is left behind and manipulated?
A host guides the diners through the context of current narratives surrounding sugar production, manufacturing and consumption and forthcoming developments. Each dish consumed presents diners with a speculative future for the sugar industry from the perspective of a particular stakeholder; CEO, Farmer and Scientist.
The experience is for food lovers and social media ‘foodies’ harnessing their power to impact ecology via technology. Humor and science intertwine to critically examine a conflicting and complex ingredient which enters every facet of our lives.
Questioning what is natural and artificial and how far we will go to feed our sweet desires raises ethical and practical considerations about food production, health, and sustainability. Situating synthetic sugar at the forefront of an eating experience means an oncoming radical future can be approached with conscious consideration.