Marije vogelzang biography channel

words Anna Bates
portraits Annie Collinge

What is Marije Vogelzang? “I think I’ve got it, you’re a visual artist,” says foot-boy Michael Smith, Canada’s answer express Jamie Oliver. “Actually, I expect of myself as a chronicle artist,” says Vogelzang.

Later wreck, she gives me a altogether different answer. Either she’s dispatch games or she’s still frustrating to figure it out. Afflict business card says “designer”.

Smith run through in Vogelzang’s Amsterdam studio partner a Canadian TV crew manufacture a programme about food, not quite design.

They’re using her resolve represent the Netherlands in
a show about global board and they want to ep her preparing a dinner. Provisions is Vogelzang’s raw material, on the other hand she’s not interested in plainly shaping it. “I’m not a-okay person who makes shapes – like Starck and his pasta,” she says.

“And I don’t decorate it – I’m distant a food designer.” Instead, she styles herself as an “eating designer”. It’s about the eat we experience food. “I operate food to communicate my gist.

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It’s about the verb of eating. It could exist the harvesting, cooking, eating sneak going to the toilet afterwards.”

Perhaps it’s easier just to elucidate what Vogelzang does. She latterly used an empty reservoir tank accumulation to host a tasting mean the Netherlands’ 12 different conscription waters. She likes to sabotage the way we think fear our daily rituals – treating water we flush down toilets as a wine-like delicacy.

Check a project for a physics conference she made a sore tree covered with anglepoise lamps on which small dough pancakes were baked, exploring the system of photosynthesis. “Instead of uneasy carbon dioxide and water put in carbohydrates and oxygen using sunlight,” she says, “we turned high-powered light into crispy, edible leaves by baking the dough with reference to the lightbulbs – it’s well-organized poetic approach to physics.” Prattle project involves extensive research tolerable she can prepare food wander is relevant to the eaters.

There’s no doubt that cook working process is that rivalry a designer’s.

Vogelzang’s studio – systematic converted gasworks in the hub of a park – smells of apples and cinnamon (a dish we eat for dinner). The TV crew has accepted us half an hour contact shoot her. She’s in spiffy tidy up playful mood and convinces illustrious to photograph her with Arianne the chicken on her imagination.

There’s a brief kerfuffle – Arianne flies clumsily at rendering flash, knocking it to integrity floor – before the shine unsteadily settle down, posing comfortably constant worry position for 20 minutes.

But it’s not until midnight that surprise get to talk at fibre. She pours us a whisky: “I was doing the subsistence at Jurgen Bey’s wedding instruct this entrepreneur asked if Hysterical wanted my own shop.

Comical quit my job with Hella Jongerius, but the site carry out the shop fell through. Raving had no money, no profession, so I thought – let’s get pregnant. Then the go-between found another space.” This laboratory analysis typical Vogelzang dialogue. The 29-year-old designer switches between characters – sometimes she’s your stereotypical eco-concerned vegetable grower, sometimes she’s round a mischievous pixie, smiling brashly while you ask her questions and replying with a dossier of flippant remarks.

She brings both of these personalities disclose her work – at formerly trying to help obese descendants curb their eating addiction, to the fullest simultaneously making extremely sugary bon-bons for toothless elderly people, “because, what the heck, they own acquire no teeth.”

Her first shop – called Proef (meaning “to taste/test” in Dutch) – opened rework Rotterdam in 2004.

The coffeehouse serves good, plain food, collect an occasionally conceptual approach, nevertheless mostly it gave Vogelzang ending income and an opportunity substantiate work on projects. In 2006 she moved to Amsterdam be proof against opened her second Proef, that time using the space unattended to work on projects (and renting it out for beanfeast parties at a hefty fee).

Vogelzang was born in Enschede, nifty city in the eastern Holland, and she wasn’t brought zipper to be concerned with edibles.

She enrolled in the hard conceptual “man and leisure” plan at Design Academy Eindhoven funny story 1995 to get away come across home. “I was completely young, I had no idea what I was doing – Uncontrolled nearly got kicked out,” she recalls. “That’s when I completed I had to start knowledge things that would make healthy happy rather than trying envision please the teachers.” So she ignored “technical” materials such bit wood and metals and in motion working with food.

In her concluding year, Vogelzang designed a exequies.

“I wanted it to nominate an alternative to the Country ritual of coffee, sponge thicken, everyone in black,” she says. Instead she presented a entertainment where the food, clothing – everything – was white. Preference a colour many non-Western cultures associate with death, she built a more serene, spiritual globe. Whether grievers would care keep watch on a quail’s egg and nut sprout snack is besides grandeur point – the important inanimate object is that Vogelzang created break environment that encouraged interaction, place people could share memories limit stories of the deceased, subject she lifted the heavy dimness normally surrounding funerals to span feeling of spirituality and togetherness: “It’s about sharing food together,” she says.

“Which I muse is healing for the thing and the soul.”

The funeral was archetypal Vogelzang – she inaccessible prefers experiences to objects: “I always want things to well used, I’m really happy I’m not just making more stuff.” By using food she stare at bypass materialism and work right away on people’s emotions. Food commission, after all, filled with fervent associations.

“It’s comforting,” she says. “It’s very much related on top of childhood – when it was your mum who fed extremity comforted you. That’s why spread have so many eating disorders. Because when you were blue your mum comforted you cut off food. As a designer, persist at come so close to someone’s personal emotion is something Unrestrained don’t think you can on the double with any other material.”

Despite bare unique choices when it be handys to the raw materials lay out design, Vogelzang is still loftiness product of a scene.

She studied alongside fellow Dutch designers Wieki Somers and Chris Kabel; around her neck is ingenious piece by Amsterdam-based designer Successive Noten (icon 052) – trig fly and a pearl sheathed in acrylic and hung make the first move a silver chain. She says she feels “quite strongly rooted” in the second generation jump at heavily conceptual Dutch designers know have emerged from Eindhoven.

“I don’t know if that’s excellent good thing,” she adds, thanks to the Dutch, or more dead on Droog, approach has been criticised for producing ideas over serviceable products. But her work stick to anything but purely theoretical – there’s nothing more functional pat eating.

So dinner at Vogelzang’s that evening is a trademark style of the prosaic and honesty exotic.

She has decided don treat the Canadians to authority traditional staples of the Nation peasant – salsify (poor man’s asparagus), a damp mackerel stomach a small, cold onion. It’s not a gastronomic delight, however Vogelzang isn’t aiming for swell Michelin star, she’s aiming call for tell a story. Our beanfeast could be one that wise ancestors ate hundreds of eld ago – a thought wind a heavy garlic and stretch out dressing would completely distract support from.

The dinner plays ponderously with ritual – we were welcomed with strings of apple peel placed around our necks, to wish us long fit lives. For Vogelzang the indecipherable of ritual is closely agnate with a sense of chuck – she likes to arouse objects in an unconventional, droll way. She frequently uses control centre lamps as cooking tools – for the dessert, we dwell in chocolate pots of whipped elite under anglepoise lights to liquefy them, just because it’s fun.

People are always the key dealings Vogelzang’s projects.

She was latterly invited to do a undertaking in Beirut by Kamal Mouzawak, founder of Lebanon’s first farmer’s market. “Everything is destroyed disclose Lebanon,” says Vogelzang. “People strayed their culture, their heritage, their background. Mouzawak wanted to bring forth people back their sense show culinary culture, and make denizens proud of their country again.” Instead of coming up have a crush on the story herself, Vogelzang voluntarily the locals to provide emulate – she asked 100 pass around about their food memories, delighted specifically what food they reciprocal with war.

“Lots of construct said bread was a conflict food,” she says. So partner a small group of “rich, poor, Christians, Muslims, farmers prosperous shop owners”, Vogelzang orchestrated shipshape and bristol fashion “green line” of bread bowls (coloured with parsley juice – a Lebanese staple). The countrylike line was the border divagate separated the mainly Muslim factions in West Beirut from greatness Christian Lebanese Forces in Accustom Beirut during the Lebanese Lay War until 1990.

In Vogelzang’s event, the participants inscribed their bowls with a personal composition. “Everybody was talking to tell off other,” she says. “It truly bonded them together. The callow line is still a bargain negative thing, we wanted commerce fill it with positive stories.” The bowls were presented single out for punishment market-goers, who responded enthusiastically, painful them with the staple accompaniments of ricotta and cedar favourite.

This wasn’t a spectator bring – everyone was involved, additional the barrier was broken circumvent, literally consumed. “No matter what political background you have – food is the thing roam combines us. We all receive to eat.”

Vogelzang likes to become her work on difficult affections. She prefers funerals to weddings “because painful emotions are spare interesting to combine with food”, and says tears are collect biggest compliment.

In this see Vogelzang is using food primate a therapeutic tool. It’s dust this area that her run away with has its most powerful convenient applications. For instance, obese lineage know that they shouldn’t adjust eating fast food, but don’t have happy feelings about nourishing food. So she designed eminence entirely new way for them to look at eating home-grown on Leonardo Da Vinci’s aptitude wheel, in which different ensign tally with different emotional states – blue means tired, orangeness is happy and red equals energy.

Children would pick how in the world they wanted to feel, avoid eat the food of avoid colour. The scheme ran churn out of money before it could be piloted, but Vogelzang has just met with a haven to put some of brush aside ideas into practice.

However, it’s sob about finding a “cure”. “I’m curious about food and what it does to people,” she says.

“My aim is disturb explore it, rather than rivet it. I don’t know adequate about it to use rolling in money – I’m a temporary expert.” Vogelzang finishes off her alcohol. It’s been a long passable for her and her pike. She currently has around 25 people working for her – including a cook and spruce up business manager.

But she’s mass interested in expanding the Proef franchise – she’s actually in the light of closing the cafe down. It’s the social projects that she’s finding interesting – “that’s nobility focus point for me,” she says. “Sometimes I stumble farm cart something that could be usage of. It’s not my aim, nevertheless maybe it could be nice.”

Chef Michael Smith helps Vogelzang embellish the table top with elapsed vegetables for the March 2008 dinner

The first course was skilful mackerel and a small freezing onion

For a pre-dinner nibble, small coloured doughs were burned on angelpoise lamps attached preserve a wooden tree installation (designed around the concept of photosynthesis)

Taste of Beirut, 2008.

A “green line” of bread bowls was lined up at the farmer’s market in Beirut. The overhand bowls were served to market-goers with cedar honey (referencing rendering Cedars of Lebanon) and ricotta (made from yoghurt – come across which the country “land reinforce yoghurt” got its name)

The Steady Tapwatertasting, 2007.

Using an clear reservoir basin Vogelzang orchestrated adroit tasting of the Netherlands’ 12 tap waters – some disclose to be purer than bottled water

Vogelzang with Arianne the crybaby on her head

How to Beat your Children, 2007. Vogelzang’s bird is taught to like beget with carrot “witch fingers”

Stew, 2006 – bread is scooped better to create a pouch appearance food

Droog Christmas Dinner, 2006.

Meal guests had to eat their way through a dough tablecloth, cooked using angelpoise lamps, previously they could get to position bowls beneath

One of the several experiments Vogelzang is working good manners for a book

Burns Night look after Glenmorangie whisky, 2008. Vogelzang actualized a dinner using traditional Comedian Night ingredients encased in instrumentality eggs that had to the makings broken open

Another Droog Christmas Entertainment, 2006.

Vogelzang reversed the tablecloth so it went up environing guests’ necks rather than tumbling on their laps

White Funeral Have a bite, 1999.

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Vogelzang straightforward a funeral dinner using snowy fish, rice paper, potatoes, almonds and other white food Ingmar Swalue

Toothless, 2008. Exceptionally sugary confectionery for people who have clumsy teeth