new | TRASH | design

In the first gallery room of the Angewandte Innovation Laboratory, two shiny figures await their guests. In dazzling, exceedingly elegant costumes they greet the incoming conference participants. They distribute cutlery and glasses to hang around their necks. On the walls monitors show videos on sustainability. On closer inspection it also turns out that honey & bunny’s glittering evening coats are made of old plastic and discarded metal parts – they are made of trash. Seemingly out of nowhere, Martin has a handheld microphone and begins randomly questioning guests on sustainability, responsibility, values, embarrassment, design,... He gets annoying, does not let up.

Eventually, the glittering hostess leads her guests to the next room. While walking, each and every one must take a heavily packaged industrial food and rip up plastic and cardboard. Two tables. Behind them stand Sonja and the renowned Austrian chef Josef Floh. Martin moderates. A competition: Sonja receives five pieces of packaging material from the audience; Floh gets their contents. They have exactly six minutes to design a meal or eating utensils. The audience is asked about the show and, of course, sustainability. Martin asks questions, gets a discussion going on garbage, overproduction, economic growth, social values.

After the upcycling show honey & bunny ask their guests into the last room, because there is a buffet set up as an absolute highlight. Together with Floh, they have made dishes of seemingly worthless food - from shells and stalks, from seeds and pips, from pervasiveness and ugliness. Ordered by colour, these worthless delicacies are lavishly displayed in 80 backlit preserving jars. Whoever wants to eat, must use their fingers.