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
Wood, Metal
Design
2023
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.
Reference: Bokkenvlaai, The immersive table (Five recipes), Soft Protest Digest
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Vlaai was originally used in german monasteries as sacrificial bread — a late version of roman ‘libum’. Some sources argue that vlaai was brought later to Nerherlands by Bokkenrijders, in the eighteenth century. This legendary gang of criminals from Limburg named itself after demons who rode on the back of flying goats provided to them by Satan; known as Bokkenrijders (or ‘buck riders’). They were most probably baking vlaai for satanistic ritual purpose, following roman pagan tradition. As Bokkenrijders worship the devil and ride bucks, their sacrificial vlaai was made with no other milk than goat milk collected in the province of Limburg. During the gang’s ceremonies, a leader would cut the white flan using a knife covered with red marmelade (made out of rosehips in the winter). The gang members would then gain strength from the rich creamy filling flavoured with rosemary — a plant considered sacred by the romans.