When you're so passionate about your work that everything else has less priority - and flourish in a routine with high peaks and steep valleys - you often forget that you're not a machine.
At the end of last year I really needed to slow down and let my body and mind rest. Which is easier said than done. Although the end of December and the beginning of a new year are probably the best time to take it easy, as many people are in a start-up phase or undergoing a slight winter depression themselves. So, until halfway April that's what I did for most of the time - I spend a lot of hours wandering through the woods, spending time with friends and family, taking Salsa dancing classes and shamelessly allowing myself to binge watch series on Netflix. Surprisingly, the amount of requests, assignments and emails was very low during those months. As if some kind of force knew that I was off-line for a while.
With renewed energy and a happy self, many great things happened in the months after throughout March, May and June;
- I was invited by the Dutch Embassy in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to give a lecture at festival Path.
- I gave a lecture at Fifteen Seconds Festival in Graz, Austria.
- I was nominated for a Young Imapact Award
- I visited the Here Now exposition in Graz of Dutch Design that included the STROOOP! project
- Together with my old intern I we prepared an experimental dinner for a great group of
Lunar
But the best thing was that I used my off-time as a moment of reflection and mental brainstorm to start thinking about the content and structure of my first book! A book, build up of three themes with six projects about five years of working on food design! More specifically about Future Food Scenarios and the combination of design, science and technology to think about new ways of food production and consumption. Update will follow soon :)
