Like a torn-side kimbap
Kimbap is a popular Korean street food made of rice and vegetables rolled in a sheet of seaweed. The biggest challenge is to roll it without tearing the seaweed. It is very frustrating to end up with a kimbap with a torn side, because once it is cut, none of the filling will stay together.
There is even a Korean idiom, ‘sounds like a kimbap with a torn side’, meaning gibberish or nonsense.
My childhood memory of this popular street food is the one-day class trip in primary school. More than the trip itself, I was excited about my mother’s signature lunch box: the kimbap. Spread the seasoned rice on a seaweed sheet, add the fillings and roll firmly but gently. Standing next to her, I could have the edges, the least beautiful ones, where the ingredients came out irregularly. That was the best part, because I could have them for breakfast. During the trip, every child awaited lunchtime to eat their lunch box, and kimbap was the most popular food: tasty and sliced into pieces, it was easy to share. Children traded one kimbap slice for another, enjoying the taste of kimbap with various fillings.
This furniture is an imaginative interpretation of my childhood memory of kimbap to bring the public into a playful foodscape.
Exhibition Tales of Late Night Snacks, part of the collective Red Bean Paste. At @NOR, Dutch Design Week 2023.