Jennifer Katanyoutanant

Food is as migratory as the people who eat it. ‘Traditional’ cuisine is not always comprised of ingredients local to the region. The modern pizza is Italian in origin, but tomatoes came from the Aztecs. American hot dogs came from German style wieners, but the act of stuffing ground meat into casings goes all the way back to the ancient Sumerians and Chinese. This contradictory notion of foreign ingredients in traditional local cuisine call into question the origin stories of ‘authentic’, regional food, and what defines authenticity.

“Home” Cooked, our edible board game, is a physical manifestation of how distinct cultural traditions have been founded upon a longstanding history of global exchange and migration. It looks at how a foreign ingredient makes its way into a new country and integrates into a region’s existing food vocabulary.

I’m excited to meet the other residents, learn about Finnish food culture, and start integrating these histories into the game. I’m also excited to learn about the history of migration within Finland and see how its affected the food culture.

I’m big on research and spend a lot of time reading and talking to people. My favorite form of research is a cup of tea with people from the surrounding community. Then I take that research and make a quick prototype, test it with people immediately, and iterate. Sometimes this process takes me down tangents I end up treasuring forever.

Jennifer Katanyoutanant is an artist, producer, and community builder using immersive experiences to build creative communities. She makes installations, games, ARVR experiences, and loves imagining all the weird things we’ll be doing on the Internet in 10 years. Her work explores tangible manifestations of complex data structures, the reciprocal relationship between personal and global systems, and their influence on culture, identity, and media.