Health & Well-being: An exploration of design thinking and creative problem solving.
Societies in the vortex of great change have struggled to stay healthy. Looking at health and wellness and its many layers through the lens of Design while addressing possible adaptations to cultural and societal needs is the challenge.
Gathering around a meal is perhaps the ultimate social event. It is an event that binds individuals, tribes and societies together. Making food is making societies. Rituals around food and eating can be found in all human cultures, past and present. Food creates identity and it is often given symbolic meanings and significance beyond the primary utilitarian intake. Ethnicity is expressed in food. Eating can be seen as a ritual and a mythological framework. In more than one aspect we are what we eat.
The workshop aims to raise awareness and bring a better understanding of an anthropological and a psychological design process. The dinner act will be the cultural and social event to study human interactions. Ultimately, it will create a link between human dynamics and the design process.
By a collection of recipes, a meal is planned, prepared and served. The recipes will be translated into vessels of individual and collective identities. Food culture will become the place to share and exchange culture, traditions, customs and experiences.
The preparation of a meal is seen not only as a making of food but a holistic event of mental and corporeal structures. The dinner becomes a synaptic system of symbols, metaphors and rituals that produce postures, sensory experiences, cooking and eating tool, and eating environments.
Location: First Floor Cafeteria, VCUQatar Building