DeTour Festival 2022, Hong Kong

18/11/2022- 04/12/2022

“Bring Romie 18 to the East” is an exhibition proposed by Adelaide Lala Tam after her project “Romie 18” (2018).

Behind its unique identifier – a short name appended to a serial number – hides one of the countless cows populating the Dutch cattle industry “adopted” by Adelaide. For this retrospective, the designer who, in turn, becomes the animal’s caregiver, traces back Romie 18’s story through a display of evidence.

Romie 18, an 11-year-old Meuse-Rhine-Yssel (1) from Eindhoven (North Brabant, Netherlands), became the motive of her inquiry and, nonetheless, an endearing companion. Indeed, as she learned to care for the animal at the farm, Adelaide grew much more attached to it than she thought she would. Amid the mechanics of the scheduled pregnancies, distribution of measured amounts of supplements, medication or food, and daily milking, the designer could identify her project’s urgency: transparency. This transparency was not only translated via the informative data revealed by Adelaide but also through the sensibility of the story she decided to tell. Along the way, Adelaide found gentle means to trigger her audience’s empathy, inviting them to reflect on the question of respect regarding animal breeding.

Romie 18’s milk and meat were used, as traditionally, in the making of cheese and sausages. Adelaide also explored the process of soap-making and leather tanning by repurposing the cow’s fat and coat. Together with each of Romie 18’s goods, Adelaide distributed a didactic leaflet to extensively inform the customer about the origin of these products and the story behind the project.

Nearly a decade later, Adelaide concludes this journey by returning to Hong Kong, solemnly carrying Romie 18’s ashes with her. As a final tribute to the animal, she has planned to design a series of ceramic incense holders. The manufacturing of this item will be the outcome of a collaboration with her fellow Design Academy Eindhoven alumni Niko Leung, a Hong Kong-based ceramic artist whose work emphasises the use of recycled materials. Together, they will turn the precious ashes into bone china, a ceramic made of bone ash and other components. Following its production, the object will be available to the audience and continue carrying Adelaide and Romie 18’s story.

(1) The Meuse-Rhine-Yssel is a Dutch breed of dual-purpose cattle, reared for meat and milk.

Food Meets Talent during the World 5o Best Restaurant Gala 04/10/2021

Food Meets Talent by S.Pellegrino in Antwerp, Flanders, Adelaide took to the stage to talk about the key issues with the food ecosystem at large and how we can confront them to preserve the natural world for tomorrow.

Stroom Uncertainty Seminars 29/02/2020

A day of encounters between animals, beings, plants, and you.

A performative dining experience in Den Haag Stroom, where we present six dishes from the New Imperial Feast collection.

“We are now in the era which faces countless, severe ecological crises. These disasters were strongly connected to the increasingly complex relationship between humans, non-human living things, and the environment. In order to re-balance these ecological and social issues. The New Ultimate Imperial Feast we presented was a series of dining experiences that bridges developments in biotechnology and agricultural systems, with different cultural traditions from around the world.

It’s ambition: to broaden our perception of what our food systems could look like in the future. By looking back and examining the notion of locality, rarity and luxury in traditional dishes. This project proposes new cultural practices that can unite us in the face of global ethical dilemmas we face in 2020, such as environment pollution, animal cruelty, and mass extinction.”

*photo by Naomi Moonlion

Re-create out loud talkshow @ Mu DDW2019

Re-create Out Loud talk show during Dutch Design Week 2019. A talk show intended to find a perfect dinner partner for the Robin for a dinner date. Through a playful and interactive selection process, a winner eventually can get a free seat to join a dinner which Robin (an existing cow with actual name Romie 18) will be served on the plate.

Commission by MU.

Videographer: Yen-An Chen

Dual Exhibition: Farming the Future - Zoom in and out

In recent years, our world as we know it has altered immensely and it continues to transform at a rapid scale. A changing climate has brought on variations in the earth’s environment, which in turn influences human society.

At the current rate, our food production systems may not be able to cope with an ever increasing human population. In today’s times, human beings rely on the complete agricultural system to provide enough food, however, the impending transformations of the environment are bound to cause problems with that system.

Alongside this, there is growing sensitivity towards ethical food production and animal welfare in modern society. People are becoming more conscious of the harm animals undergo within classical farming methods.

How can human beings deal with environmental, ethical and social issues facing the agriculture and food industries? Is there a possibility to find a co-existence between human and nature?

Through the exhibition ‘Farming the Future - Zoom in and Out’ Kuang Yi Ku and Adelaide Lala Tam aim to explore these complex issues through their interdisciplinary practices. Both artists/designers tend toward fascinations based on nature and their similar interests have led them to this collaborative exhibition.

Ku and Tam have also collaborated to form a new project, of which the work in progress is shown alongside their individual works during this exhibition. The “New Ultimate Imperial Feast” is a project symbiosis of bio art and food design.

Farming the Future - Zoom In and Out is on display at TAC Eindhoven from 30 May till 23 June.