Reflection
For this ‘Noshtalgia’ project, the artefact I designed is a contemporary Food Guide Package which I’ve named ‘A Taste of Greece’. The package consists of an A6 food guide zine, ingredient cards and a wooden spoon, and are all placed in a clear plastic pocket.
When first starting this project, I immediately thought to chose the Greek culture as my theme, as growing up in Greece, I have always been surrounded by the the Greek food culture, and I consider it to be a major part of my life. My family have influenced this, as I would always remember either my yiayia or mum cooking Greek food in the kitchen for hours, and the aromas that filled the room would bring me back to my childhood. In saying this, for my noshtalgia project I wanted to depict key aspects of my culture into my artefact to express my experiences growing up in a Greek household.
I found it quite challenging to come up with an initial idea for my final artefact, as I was tossed up between a travel food guide (which would include photographs of Greek restaurants/cafes in Melbourne) and a food guide package (which would include the childhood dishes I ate growing up, and yiayias recipes). After experimenting with small scaled mockups, several weeks of brainstorming and seeking inspiration, I decided that a food guide package would be best suited for this project, as I was able to connect with my culture and certain dishes on a personal level, and share that through my artefact.
When trialling various methods for my artwork, I was inspired by the mark marking we produced in our studio class, where we made patterns out of fruits and vegetables. I thought this would be a good way to incorporate important culinary ingredients into my zine. I enjoyed using the black ink to stamp out prints using Greek herbs, and I felt as though it gave my project that extra detail and directly connected it to my culture.
As a team, we decided to present all of our cultural artefacts in the form of an “Un-Souvenier Shop” at the Week 13 Food Event, which was such a success. I thought this idea worked perfectly, as it meant each of us could present our artefacts in a unique way that represented our individual cultures. I thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the other students work and admiring all the talent that is spread across our entire cohort.
Overall I loved the concept of my artefact, however I felt as though I could have taken a different approach to it and possibly added a few extra illustrations. I believe if I knew what direction my work would go in, in the earlier stages of the design process, I may have created a better outcome.
