THE GARDEN WE WASTE

Interactive Art Installation

Collaborators: Jenn Yoolim Kim, Felicia Liang.

Timeline: March - April 2022.

Personal Responsibilities & Skills:

Bioplastic Research & Fabrication, Experience Design, Structural Design and Installation, 3D Printing, Exhibition Set-Up, Spatial Sound Design.

Reminiscent of a canopy of flowers, the Garden We Waste creates a lively garden in an unexpected setting, inviting the viewer to rethink the relationship between humans and food waste. By creating bioplastics from fruits and vegetables — the most commonly wasted food items at home — waste is transformed into a new form that disguises the truth of food waste behind a beautiful, colorful facade. Peeling away this facade via an interactive augmented reality experience, viewers learn about the uncomfortable truth of humanity’s detrimental impact on the environment with each scrap wasted.

Just as gardens flourish when humans nurture and tend to them, the Garden We Waste achieves a more harmonious balance with the environment when we are more thoughtful with what we consume and ultimately waste.

In the United States, 1/3 of food produced goes uneaten. An average US household throws away $1,866 of food per year which has an aggregate value of $240 billion annually. When we throw out food, we are also throwing out all the resources used to produce, store, transport, and handle that food — including arable land, labor, energy, water, chemicals, etc. Food production also releases greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere, and wasted food in landfills generates even more GHGs.

Based on research that up to 584K tons of food waste can be reduced through education, we selected art and education as mediums to communicate the gravity of the food waste challenge. We hope that by creating a visceral emotional response through art, the conversation about food waste becomes more personal and incites a sense of ownership, participation, and agency in the food system.

By creating something beautiful out of the leftover, the discarded, and the imperfect, The Garden We Waste implores viewers to consider if the food they waste truly needs to be wasted, or if it deserves a chance to be cherished and consumed.