Week 11
- Monica Leon
- Nov 25, 2020
- 7 min read
Primary Research
Observation:
I went to Wegmans, located next to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I wanted to observe how consumers interacted in the supermarket and if there any rituals previous to making their purchasing decision.
A bag of four avocados costs $4.00
A single Avocado costs $1.49 and in another smaller local supermarket the avocado costs $1.00.
The bigger avocados are $3.99
Many consumers would go and touch the avocado to see if they are soft. Picking one by one, up to 3-4 avocados and then selecting them.
Interview with Vanessa Harden
Zoom recording:
Synthesizing and transcribing the interview:
Los Sures: Affordable Housing Community, based in Williamsburg.
Roberto runs the hydroponic bodega systems.
An organization that helps people find housing and they also have a physical establishment for the elderly.
On the basement they have a food pantry, people can go once or twice a week to feed the community but also people arriving with food stamps for the people that need food.
Food pantry mostly involve: Canned food, potatoes.
Hydroponics: But they also give them fresh produce such as kale and lettuce.
Food that was not in sync with the culture of the community.
In the neighborhood, there has been a lot of bodegas that have been closing because of COVID. They transform this bodegas into food pantries and hydroponic spaces so people can access free food.
The community, whom is mainly Puerto Rican, told them if they could grow some of their food that reminded them to their native country, such as Cuban oregano. They listened to the community and even tho they wanted to offer a nutritious food like kale, the woman said: "Kale is White Woman food."
The organization based in NY was saying here is American food. And the community was saying please grow something we like.
The Museum of Food
Chinese - American food timeline.
What were the iterations? Was it more noodles, more sauce?
How did it transform?
Vanessa is a Designer
She designs tools both speculative, as well as functional and everyday tools for gardening and horticulture.
She is interested in the challenges and the relationships people have with nature and how that is linked with their food cultivation and consumption.
She started this journey when she was doing her Masters at the Royal College of Arts.
She was creating a system of tools for Guerilla Gardening.
They would allow you to go and garden without anybody knowing because it is illegal.
Guerilla gardening is when people go to public spaces and beautify them because they are neglected.
She concentrated in urban gardening for the purpose of beautification. She did it through the speculative perspective.
One day she was sitting at an exhibition space waiting for it to open, where she was showing going to showcase her work at in London. While drinking her coffee, a homeless man approached her. She was unbothered by him and they started talking, but the he mentions that he was a gardener. He was homeless, but used to work as a gardener. At that moment he would look around and would be foraging for food and look for things he could eat in the city.
And then it comes the eureka moment when he asks: "What have you been growing?" And she just says: "Nothing" she just grows to beautify. She has been making and statement that we are able to claim our land.
The homeless man says: "Yes, but what's the point if you cant eat?"
Her work changed from being very speculative to functional. "If you can't eat you cant beautify anything." It changed to have a meaning to food access.
After that she travels to Mumbai, India. She meet with various individuals and decided to work and learn from them.
Pediatric doctors who had farms in the hospitals.
Orphanages who were growing food in disability centers.
They care more about eating than beauty because their idea of beauty is different.
English gardens are beautiful vs. Indian gardens were atypically beautiful by bearing fruit.
She came back to NY and started the non-profit: Subversive Gardener.
From an academic point of view and impact driven point of view.
She works with organizations and introduce students to them so we can use our knowledge to create solutions to these partners.
Speculative Design: offers an alternative solution or an alternative future and presents a scenario.
The main points of art and design is to create discussion.
If we keep on eating avocados, we might start printing 3D avocados.
Avocado cartels- we already live in a dystopian world. We can get killed over avocados.
She studied under Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, they coined the term speculative design.
Vanessas first project was called: Tools by Cue - Guerilla gardening tools for espionage.
If Guerilla gardening is illegal, then it is prosecutable. If its prosecutable, it needs to be covert. Who is the most covert character our there? James Bond!
Problem: In the future we won't have land access to grow food and its illegal to beatify neglected space, and how do you design for people that can't do what they can do legally?
The future is people getting prosecuted for growing their food. If that’s the case then you would need gardening tools that are espionage.
You needed to be a gardener spy in the future.
Second series: concept of Guerilla gardening in the ages.
How would it look in Victorian ages if it was illegal back then? They did not have gadgets or electricity.
She designed a pistol that had seeds.
Grillz for the teeth that could shoot seeds (Intended for the youth culture.
What does it look like for Victorian (past), for James Bond (present), for the youth (future).
A farm in Ghana and water filtration problems.
Eco Farm in the Volta region.
Educating people in the village about contamination.
Drinking the water in the well, garbage and sustainability.
Clay pots to purify water because they don't have the same resources and technologies.
Designing to manufacture themselves.
Avocados Future
Access to the "Green Gold"
If they are like gold, would you need a special safe to hide them and preserve them?
Are there going to be avocado banks?
Is there going to be a special task force, FBI Avocado? Or DEA for avocado Narcos.
It doesn’t have to be a solution, but a potential tale. A warning sign!
Cookbooks that deliberately appropriate.
"The American Appropriation Cookbook: Staring The Avocado"
Actually taking traditional beautiful recipes and deliberately add ketchup and mayo.
Add "soy sauce" and it is already an Asian avocado dish. Play with the stereotypes.
Talk about the future and where our food industry is going by designing it.
LOOK! This is how the future is going to look like if we don’t stop.
Comparing the Avocado with Saffron, Gold, Maple Syrup, Diamonds.
A sign of wealth!
You have an avocado = you are rich! You want an avocado, you want to steal an avocado, the feeling of jealousy, the Superbowl? You want to go to the Superbowl just to eat guac and chips.
Maple Syrup = Liquid Gold
It can only be grown and produced in a certain part of Canada in Vermont and New Hampshire.
"Dirty Money" - The Maple Syrup Heist
There are only one or two companies that own the rights to maple syrup and they have it on a tank. One night they steal it in a big transport truck with a big cooler. Approx 60% of the maple syrup in the entire world is there.
That year, maple syrup internationally went more than saffron. It had enter the Black Market.
Avocados have entered the Black Market in some ways.
What would people do for avocados?
In Japanese culture, they harvest fruit and vegetables for gift giving.
Avocados in a mold and shaped in a heart for gift giving? "Its too good for regular people to consume"
$300 on three avocados grown with purified Fiji water.
From water connoisseurs
Research the culture of gift giving with fruit.
Squared watermelons in a special mold.
Huge apples, like $6
Everybody is growing the avocados because there is so much demand and it is treated like gold.
A tool to identify an expensive avocado, but you need to know where it was grown.
Or a handbook that explains the best grown avocados, like an accessible directory.
Someone has to check that they are authentic.
Checking its Value.
With Diamonds you have "C color", different color grades, VS is the best diamond. It is better to have a small shinny than a big cloudy diamond.
What is a fake avocado vs. a real avocado.
GMO vs. Organic (Present) - we already have that now
Casa Enrique- first Mexican restaurant to get a Michelin star in NYC.
Guacamole is so good because they have their own avocado growth in Mexico and ship them only to them.
More than just organic, premium avocado. Not something that you could buy at a store.
Organic vs. Premium (Future)
Is the premium a secret? Supposed to be more nutritious? Underground? Did the cartel bring them through? Casa Enrique imported good?
Heirloom Avocado- grown not in a standardized farm. But in a specialized attention farm, that has belonged to a family for several generations.
Human taking care of the product.
Mapping the tiers and hierarchies of the avocados -> they you can associate wealth to it. A luxurious commodity.
Cheap vs. Expensive
Location
Who is the consumer
Why is it bought by them? Gift, personal use, commercial black market?
Who owns them/grows them?
Nutritional Value?
How much does it cost in Japan?
Map it to existing commodities that have entered the black market.
There is a very small group of things that cost and have been take from common markets.
The similarities with maple syrup, diamond, saffron. And then create the same similarities for the speculative future.
Looking at the trends and understanding where is going to get to.
Back then wood was more expensive than gold. There was no commodity to gold until it was used as money. It was a normal material.
Avocados is in an interesting position because before they were expensive because it came from another country and the exportation costs.
What does that mean? Maybe there would only be 7 start avocado only restaurants. is a food of luxury like gold in food.
What does that mean? Maybe there would only be 7 start avocado only restaurants.
But now it is being associated directly to luxury. They are transforming and becoming more boogie by the minute.
Understand enough about the avocado but how do I take a step forward! Map it so I can project the future of the avocado.
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