Food Revolution 5.0

Eating, nutrition and foodstuffs touch on key themes in our society, both pleasant and unsettling. On the one hand these include health and wellbeing, cultural identity and social inclusion, as well as creativity and innovation. On the other, there are challenges and crisis scenarios: climate change and the greenhouse effect, the finiteness of natural resources, water shortages, poverty and hunger, overproduction and wastefulness, land grabbing, trade agreements and protectionism.

During the 20th century, global industrialization had a decisive impact on the development of nutrition and our dealings with food. Foodstuffs have become mass-produced items created by a highly specialized, globalized manufacturing process. They are not usually intended for the producer’s own use, but instead are traded and sold. Between the basic product and the dining table, foods pass through a great variety of stages.

Food design was one of the very earliest design tasks, and cooking food is regarded as the first cultural act of human beings, marking the start of civilization and handicrafts. Nowadays, however, the world needs a global revolution that combines cutting-edge technologies with traditional cultural techniques and cultural understanding of the particular characteristics of food production. Above all, though, greater nutritional equality is needed throughout the world.

“Food Revolution 5.0” is a collaboration between the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg and the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur. The exhibition has travelled from Hamburg to Winterthur via Berlin. The Gewerbemuseum Winterthur expands on individual themes in the exhibition, enhancing them with numerous activities and projects from Switzerland and taking a look at issues specific to Switzerland. The exhibition is complemented by a full programme of events.