Han W枚sten wins yet another Bio Art & Design Award

Hand taste determines flavour of food

De Koreaanse kunstenaar Jiwon Woo en hoogleraar Microbiologie Han W枚sten
Jiwon Woo and Han W枚sten at the opening of the exhibition

Professor of Microbiology Han W枚sten and Korean artist Jiwon Woo have won one of the three ZonMw Bio Art & Design (BAD) Awards for 2017. Their project deals with 鈥榟and taste鈥, the 鈥榝lavour鈥 that hands pass on to food - a subject that Westerners are often unfamiliar with. This is W枚sten鈥檚 third BAD Award.

The idea behind the BAD Award is that a researcher and an artist work together to set up a project. 鈥淭hat has two benefits,鈥 says W枚sten. 鈥淎rtists are good at presentation, so they can help the scientists publicise their research. Artists are also more detached from the subject. They are less burdened by dogmas that researchers can get caught up in by reading the scientific literature. That makes the artist more free and creative.鈥

Minister Bussemaker bij de jurk gemaakt op basis van schimmels
Han W枚sten looking at the the dress made from fungi at the opening of the exhibition 'Fungal Futures' in 2016

Third win

This is W枚sten鈥檚 third BAD Award win. His first project led to the development of fungal materials, and even to a dress made from fungi. 鈥淲omen often come to me asking if they can feel it and smell it,鈥 W枚sten explains. 鈥淭hey would buy it off the rack, if it were for sale. It feels a bit leathery, and it smells a bit mouldy at first. But eventually the superficial odours fade away, and you can鈥檛 smell it anymore.鈥

Cooking with your hands

W枚sten and Woo were presented with a BAD Award 2017 for their project about 鈥榟and taste鈥, the flavour that your hands give to food when you handle it. The taste of the food is influenced by the healthy micro-organisms on your hands. 鈥淧eople in Korea cook with their hands. In the Western world, we usually don鈥檛 do that, because we鈥檙e afraid that the food will spoil. It may be a coincidence, but according to a Korean expression, good cooks have a good hand taste鈥, W枚sten explains.

Loss of cultural heritage

鈥淵ou inherit part of your hand taste from your parents. So we compared the hand flora of the grandmothers, mothers and daughters of four Korean families, some of whom lived in the same house,鈥 he continues. 鈥淲e found that the similarities within a family were indeed bigger than those between families. One daughter had moved to another country, and had lost the hand taste of her grandmother and mother. You could see that as a loss of cultural heritage.鈥

Artisanal products

鈥淗ere in the Netherlands, for example, most of us probably think that artisanal bread tastes better than mass-produced bread. In the STW Open Mind programme, I want to study whether there is a difference in the chemical composition of industrial and artisanal products, and if you can isolate that flavour. In that case, it might be interesting for the industry to add certain hand tastes during the production process.鈥

Excessive

W枚sten thinks that our hygiene regulations are a bit excessive. 鈥淚 hate it when they package every cookie in an individual wrapper. That鈥檚 completely unnecessary. Jiwon and I drank rice wine that people had kneaded with their bare hands, and we never got sick. I鈥檓 also not a neat freak in the kitchen. You have to develop a bit of resistance on your own.鈥

Odour of organic meat

鈥淵ou can smell it on organic meat too. It just smells different. I sometimes buy ordinary meat at the supermarket, not because it鈥檚 cheaper, but because of the scent. I鈥檓 just not accustomed to the smell of organic meat. It鈥檚 entirely likely that we鈥檝e lost the ability to appreciate certain flavours by eating industrial food products,鈥 according to W枚sten.

Jury

As W枚sten鈥檚 has won the BAD Award three times already, he is not allowed to participate next year. 鈥淪o I鈥檒l take a seat in the jury this year. It鈥檚 fun to see it from the other side every once in a while. The 鈧 25,000 in prize money all goes to the artist, by the way. That鈥檚 a lot of money in the art world, but you can鈥檛 do much research with it.鈥

Exhibition

The three BAD Award-winning projects are on display in the exhibition at the MU in Eindhoven until 18 February.

Text: Roy Keeris