Food Funeral

As an expansion on the In-Significant Stories of A Rice Grain project, I tried to engage students in Emily Carr in another activity. This time the activity allowed for various forms of communication, including verbal, visual, and vocal and made engagement with the project more accessible.
I designed a low-fidelity poster to hang above compost bins at ECU, asking people to commemorate the food they threw away in the form of a short eulogy or a memorial doodle, drawing or even a recorded voice or video.

The project intended to evaluate various factors within the small scale of a university, such as the engagement rate with such activities if there were no incentives or direct invitations, the type of food people threw away and the reason behind it. Though it is too early to make any conclusions for this project, I was pleased and surprised to get a response the day after I hung up the posters. It was amazingly encouraging to see people will actually engage in a spontaneous activity they come across. It makes me wonder about the effectiveness of the visual I chose for my poster as much as the idea. How would other visuals impact this process? I don’t know, but I’m excited to explore!

The one response I received up until now، indicates that this person was “delighted” to participate in this activity and is willing to participate in more. This makes me wonder how the demographics of students of ECU affect the responses I will receive for this project. What would happen if I designed the same activity in a mall or a park?

Here is the one beautiful eulogy I have received so far:

Here lies the orange peel i ate this morning. It kept my juicy orange clean and free of debris until i got to school and had a chance to eat it. it made a delicious scent when i peeled it. i am so grateful for all you’ve done for me, my beloved orange peel. rip

Jesse McIver

I hope I will receive more responses and update this post accordingly.