GUILTY FLAVOURS
Final project
MA Material Futures
'Eleonora Ortolani, Guilty Flavours', 2023
© the artist. Photo: Eleonora Ortolani
Guilty Flavours grew out of my frustration with how society handles plastic waste – an endless cycle of production, pollution, and ineffective recycling. I asked myself: what if we could eat plastic?
It wasn’t easy finding scientists who were actually on board. But after some begging, I teamed up with Joanna Sadler and her team at the University of Edinburgh, using engineered E. coli bacteria to transform plastic into vanillin (the molecule we perceive as vanilla flavour), pushing the boundaries of what’s chemically possible and challenging accepted norms around food and waste.
The ice cream sits locked in a freezer, not because it’s chemically unsafe, but because it hasn’t yet passed the slow, cautious food safety testing process. It will remain locked away until we decide what to do with it, caught in a regulatory limbo that reveals how innovation is often blocked more by bureaucracy than by innovation.
Through this project, I want to spark a conversation about how far we’re willing to go – or not go – to rethink our relationship with consumption, waste, and what it means to nourish ourselves and the planet.
This is ready now, but are we?
It wasn’t easy finding scientists who were actually on board. But after some begging, I teamed up with Joanna Sadler and her team at the University of Edinburgh, using engineered E. coli bacteria to transform plastic into vanillin (the molecule we perceive as vanilla flavour), pushing the boundaries of what’s chemically possible and challenging accepted norms around food and waste.
The ice cream sits locked in a freezer, not because it’s chemically unsafe, but because it hasn’t yet passed the slow, cautious food safety testing process. It will remain locked away until we decide what to do with it, caught in a regulatory limbo that reveals how innovation is often blocked more by bureaucracy than by innovation.
Through this project, I want to spark a conversation about how far we’re willing to go – or not go – to rethink our relationship with consumption, waste, and what it means to nourish ourselves and the planet.
This is ready now, but are we?
'Eleonora Ortolani, Guilty Flavours', 2023.
© the artist. Photo: Mael Henaff.
Collaborators:
Joanna Sadler, Research Scientist, The University of Edinburgh
Dr Hamid Ghoddusi, Food scientist, London Metropolitan University
Paula Corsini, Science Specialist, Grow Lab CSM
Joanna Sadler, Research Scientist, The University of Edinburgh
Dr Hamid Ghoddusi, Food scientist, London Metropolitan University
Paula Corsini, Science Specialist, Grow Lab CSM