On edibility and the edibles

A kaleidoscope of shattered sugar pieces hammered from edible sculptures of old Hong Kong landmarks.

On edibility and the edibles 

Ten years ago, an idea emerged between Heinrik and I, while we were still a fresh graduate and a student of Product Design respectively. The idea that food can be designed, and can be Design in itself. Ten years later, we have created a long list of projects, collaborations, public experiences, performances, exhibitions, workshops, seminars…many works of creations that are edible literally or food-mediated. The issues we have addressed would become another long list: humanity, technology, media politics, culture, heritage, wastage, atomic origins, etc and how ever far from food itself. 

From time to time, we experienced struggle in articulating what we have been doing through words. Our earliest ‘slogan’ was Deep Food is ‘food for thought’, but I feel our works over the years seemed to evolve more than that. 

The word ‘Thought’ alone feels insufficient because we have been creating edible scenarios way more embodied than mere dissemination of ideas, in many cases, we don’t even position ourselves as the authority to present ideas and concepts, we are mostly the host that curates eating as reflective and mutual discoveries. When we make bizarre Yuen Yeung (tea and coffee) blends for an architectural biennale, it is not just about pondering upon ideal urban development but realising the diversity a local street can encapsulate. Maybe it is not just thinking but creating. 

Then, the word 'Practice' also doesn’t contain every quality either. Since our creations often aim not only for the shared-edible experience we host, like those occasions where we use dumplings as a form of community arts. In particular, using dumpling workshops to collect memories of a public housing village, and eating dumplings inspired by those stories together with the community. The more-than-practice part came as it was at the same time conceptual, metaphorical, and ideological. That leads me to think maybe Deep Food is a form of research. 

Then we realise neither does the word 'Research' works. The essence of research is to generate knowledge, but in most cases, we have been realising and actualising at the same time. When we produced proof-of-concepts installations using agentic-AI technologies in 2024, a year before such tech hit mainstream, we experimented with the idea of Explainable AI for Empathy by actualising a multiple agent model of ‘Board of Directors’ meetings for the question of ‘what do we have for dinner’. It seemed to be a form of Action Research but the process led to actualisation, not just theorising through the interventions. 

The genuine experience as a co-founder and as observed from our participants have been lived, embodied, reflective…by sincerity, I would like to suggest that those could have been by essence, edible.

If Edible is the essence, to think further along the line, the work of Deep Food is the Edibility. In which edibility itself is not just a medium but a philosophical situation where possibilities emerge.

It means participations that cannot remain passive but eaten; that the boundaries between observer and participant dissolves in eating; and the concepts become literally internalised, digested. 

I believe this has been why Deep Food matters to me and to the context where we now sit within. In edibility, edibles become the host of a loop involving embodied experience, reflective meaning and conceptual articulation, none of them are separated, all edible. It may not sound immediately exciting in text, but this is the genuine reflection on what Deep Food has been creating, and an honest articulation of what we feel excited about— Edibility: food as a tool for expanded possibilities on thinking, relating, and acting in the world. Explored through food-mediated situations we will continue to create in the real world: the future is edible! 

-Cindy, written in 2026 while Deep Food resumes creations in our new London home.