Culinair Cellulair
Explore the endless future possibilities of cellular agriculture and gain insight into the science behind it.

Year of project: 2023 (ongoing)
Project by: Chloé Rutzerveld & Organism Studios
With support of: Dutch National Research Agenda
In collaboration with: DSM-Firmenich, Lowlands Science
Special thanks to: Meatable & Mosa Meat

CULINAIR CELLULAIR
Imagine, you have the opportunity to grow your own food from cells of plants, fungi, and animals. What would your dish look like? Would it consist of cells from plants and familiar ingredients, or would you dare to venture into using extinct animal species, such as a T-rex or Dodo? And then, of course, the pivotal question: would you dare to take a bite of your own creation?

Culinair Cellulair is an interactive installation that allows visitors to design a cell-based future dish. This involves creating food from cells of animals, plants or fungi, without relying on traditional farming methods. Through a convergence of art, science, and cellular agriculture, this is visually represented in the installation. Visitors are guided through the entire process of cellular agriculture in an accessible and visual manner.

Using a touchscreen, visitors go through the cultivation process in four steps (cell source - design - cell growth - preparation) while creating a personalized dish based on the choices they make in each phase. They can experiment with different flavors, textures, shapes, and colors. Ultimately, the dish they create is displayed on a holographic screen.

Who is the target audience?
Culinair Cellulair is designed for a diverse audience. Through the installation, visitors explore the endless future possibilities of cellular agriculture and gain insight into the science behind it. The installation also aims to spark conversations about ethics, consumer acceptance, and food innovation.

In addition to science communication for the public, the installation and the future food models are also intended to excite scientists and professionals to dare to look more creatively at future culinary possibilities involving novel food ingredients.

Educational tool & conversation starter
Cellular agriculture and alternative protein production can play a significant role in the pursuit of a climate-neutral Europe. By engaging people in an open and educational manner with these developments, they can form a well-informed opinion about the future of food production.

The use of the Culinair Cellulair installation in museums and at events can serve as an effective tool to initiate discussions about new production techniques, ethics, sustainability, and the possibility of new products alongside traditional food. This way, citizens can be actively involved in shaping a sustainable and healthy food industry.

The recent political decision by the Italian parliament to ban the production and sale of cell-cultured products is an example of how political actions can go against consumer choice and EU legislation. It underscores the importance of an open and democratic debate on these new forms of food production, where the voices of citizens are heard and there is room for diverse perspectives and opinions.

Collecting user data
The choices people make while going through the four steps from choosing the cell-base to the final preparation while making their personalized cell-based future dish are stored anonymously. This allows us to see exactly which ingredients, shapes, textures, flavors and preparation methods are popular and which are not popular at all. And whether they choose domesticated species, or exotic or even extinct cell sources. We can also see whether people are interested in getting choice help for high-fiber foods, high-protein foods or the most sustainable choice, for example, and what percentage of people would actually want to eat the dish they made. At the end of each exhibition period or conference, the system is read and the data is stored. This is very raw data now; in a future version, we want to add additional parameters, including age, place of residence and current dietary preferences, as this is a significant indicator of the user's choices.