Le Zhang 张乐
ABOUT
Le Zhang is an interdisciplinary designer, researcher, and freelance writer. With the matured skills of a designer and the insights of an anthropologist, she is dedicated to exploring material culture that crosses geographical boundaries and conducting investigations in a creative manner. Viewing design as a thought catalyst, her work encompasses multimedia content production.
After graduating from the Royal College of Art, she founded the cultural design studio Earth Buffet, focusing on geospatial food research, design, and investigation. She is also the co-founder of Outland Publishing Fair and the publishing group Aphakia. She now works as a researcher in Innovation Design at CAFA and as staff in the OTBT anthropology field school.
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Outland Publishing Fair
OTBT
Potato Currency
Potatoes circulate like currency on the lands of Malta and throughout Europe. Viewing the difference of transactions, the contours of society has delineated from the perspective of food. This includes the introduced crop in colonial times, the traditional of self-sustaining agricultural, and Malta's "surrogacy" food production model in relation to the European mainland.
Read more...Anthropology field work
2023-now
The British Local Fish Cooker
The British Local Fish Cooker is a speculative installation reflecting the paradoxical reality of cod eaten in the UK. Caught in the North Atlantic, cut in China and then eaten in the UK. Global cod supply sustains the beloved local tradition of fish and chips. The cod swims more dead than alive.
Read more...Installation
Design Investigation
2023
Distributive territory:
The Glocal British Fishing Village
This book is a horizontal research of cod eaten in UK. Reviewing the history and now days data, it demonstrate a trans-temporal territory of British constructed LOCAL. From the fish & chips recipe brought by Jewish migrants to the British long distance fishing industry, the material and relations are interlacing at distance meanwhile forming a map beyond LOCAL.
Read more...Book
Design Investigation
2023
Shopping Bags: The Moving Territory of Foodscape
Acting as a bridge between the external world and the immigrant's home, the shopping bag can be seen as the moving territory of foodscape, a pathway on the streets. And this is also what this zine hopes to bring to you—a perspective for reflecting on the localization, migrants, and food.
Read more...Zine
Design Anthropology
2024
Figurative System of Human Knowledge
This zine is a trilingual Chinese-English-French comparison reading of the Figurative System of Human Knowledge. Each section has been separated from the original tree diagram and enlarged to single pages for easier reading.
Read more...Zine
Mapping
2023
A Slice of Shanghai - Virginia
This cake is a combination of two kinds of shortcake, which are recorded to be originated in Britain. I used Ruby cake (a cake says to be original in the UK and gained fame in Shanghai) and the Strawberry Shortcake (a cake from the cooking book Virginia Housewife) as a media to discuss the import and export of food along with the cultural identity shift it brought.
Read more...Mixed media
Design Investigation
2023
KNIFE, knife
This knife can achieve two movements at the same time：one is cutting, and the other is smearing jam. It try to imply by this that every thing itself has a dual attribute.
Read more...Wood, Metal
Design
2023
Molding Black Box
Molding Black Box is a conceptual tool that aims to explore the production of man-made objects through the simulation of injection moulding. In this work, the injection mould is transformed from an industrial production into a 'blind box' that cannot be opened or examined.
Read more...OSB, Metal, Paper
Design
2022
Retrace the Material Flow
Retrace the material flow is a wearable interactive device by which users can re-experience the displacement of the transported goods. The two parts of the device are respectively worn on the object and the user, which are connected by a printed paper tape.
Read more.....Wearable Interactive Device
Design
2021
Material Bypath
Material Bypath focuses on how the real world of material existence acts on individual perception, and how we establish material interaction at the intersection of virtual and real world. I try to re-examine the possibility of future matter from a comprehensive perspective mixed with multiple parallel paths.
Read more...Book & Workshop
Design
2021