(3.1) Material Cycles and Food

What material cycles shape the food we eat? Which materials accompany food throughout its journey—from soil and cultivation to processing, packaging, use, and regeneration? And how do these relationships change when food is understood as part of a living system?

These questions formed the starting point of Food Systems and Material Cycles, a workshop led by design researcher Ronja Grossar (Institute of Design Research Vienna) as part of ReGenerativa 2026 at KinderKunstLabor.

Working with a specially developed material library, the children explored food and the material worlds connected to it. Through observing, comparing, sorting, and making, they investigated the origins, transformations, and circulation of different materials, revealing the complex relationships between soil, water, plants, packaging, consumption, and regeneration. Rather than approaching food as an isolated consumer product, the workshop framed it as part of an interconnected ecological, material, and social system

In a second phase, the children developed their own future scenarios and imagined how—and with whom—we might share meals in the year 2100. Speculative design became a method for questioning present-day habits while exploring new relationships between people, materials, and the living world.

The workshop took place on 12 June 2026 in two two-hour sessions for school classes and families. The ReGenerativa workshop series invites children to explore, design, and think alongside artists and designers, using creative practice as a way of engaging with future challenges. The series forms part of the curatorial programme leading towards the exhibition Mission Future 2100 and builds on the successful inaugural workshops held in November 2025.