Greenluv

To Jihyun Ryou, design is not about making life easier but about propagating knowledge. Her latest project, Save Food From the Fridge is centered around food preservation. Ryou has crafted a series of food storage contraptions that counter the hidden, black box technology of the refrigerator by relying on “traditional oral knowledge [that] has been accumulated from experience.” Using basic materials like maple wood, beeswax and sand, her food-storage devices regulate light, dark, dryness and humidity in order to preserve foods.

“I’ve learned that we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, the refrigerator,” she explains. “We don’t observe the food anymore, and we don’t understand how to treat it,” she adds.