After spending a summer in Madrid learning and researching its food culture and heritage, I completed a design project that reflects on and aims to innovate the tapas experience inspired by Oreja a la Plancha (Grilled pig's ear), a traditional tapas dish in Spain. Through a series of on-site ethnographic studies, I created concepts for a food experience and a product design to contemplate the many facets of the tapas culture.
We Are "Here/Hear" (2023)
We Are “Here/Hear” is a food experience concept that engages anyone interested in sharing a “dining experience” to become a part of an introspective dialogue centered around contemplating the consumption of/around Oreja a la Plancha (Grilled pig’s ear), a traditional tapas dish originated in Southern Spain. Oreja a la Plancha consists of pig’s ears that are cut into chunks or slices marinated with bay leaf and then grilled in olive oil with spices and seasonings until crispy golden brown. The dish is usually served with salsa Vizcaina and a lemon wedge on the side. For those who celebrate Oreja a la Plancha, it is an explosion of flavors and textures clashing together, and every bite consists of a combination of crunchy cartilage, chewy skin, creamy collagen, smoky paprika, and vibrant taste of salsa Vizcaina—it never bores a curious soul. We Are “Here/Hear” aims to function as a social experiment that brings people here to hear together, stimulating open interactions and dialogues while creating a sound archive centered around Oreja a la Plancha.
We Are “Here/Hear” features a dining table prepared with a raw pig’s ear lying on a bed of intermingling red and orange threads on a white plate with two sharing plates on each side served with a set of earbud headphones connected to the cochlea of the pig’s ear. And the myriad of interwoven red and orange threads crawls out of the entrée dish in the center, weaving through the whole table. With two sets of earbud headphones connected to MP3 players hidden beneath the pig’s ear, We Are “Here/Hear” invites the participants to listen to a soundtrack that encompasses a compilation of ambiance I collected from different tapa bars serving Oreja a la Plancha in Spain.
The installation explores Oreja a la Plancha as a reservoir of constantly shifting social and cultural memories as well as evolving collective identities embedded in the food and foodways of tapas consumption. By creating a space for a series of mutual hearings, We Are “Here/Hear” engages the participants through both physical and metaphorical perceptions of listening. At the same time, We Are “Here/Hear” embodies profound incongruities and conflicting impulses—it turns a dining experience that supposedly entails physical consumption into imaginative digestion, unveiling the gastronomical tradition of offal consumption in the tapas culture on the brink of concurrent loss and revival in Spain.
I Hear You (2023)
Table Side Holder/Signifier
"I Hear You” is a design inspired by Oreja a la Plancha that aims to improve a tapas bar experience by introducing a new way of signifying for service that engages with the diners physically and visually, simultaneously performing functionality while creating playfulness. In an often busy and buzzing tapas bar, the rotating pig’s ear table side holder functions as a signifier that helps a tapas bar serve more efficiently and promptly by utilizing the rotating ear. When the ear is out, it suggests a need for service and expresses hospitality, indicating that the waiter hears the guest and can promptly respond to the guest's needs.
At the same time, the design takes on the physiological function of hearing that the pig’s ear embodies and then reimagines it as both storage and expression of collective memory as it literally hears and witnesses what the diners converse during the meal. Hence, the pig’s ear table side holder also acts as a physical manifestation of memory and remembering.