Leftovers Project – About the Project

The Leftovers Project is a critical design practice that explores food-based waste through sculpture, collage and video. Inspired by the work of Dunne & Raby, the project embraces design as a thought experiment rather than utility, aiming to provoke reflection on consumption, waste, and pedagogy. By experimenting with discarded food packaging and scraps, I created artifacts that disrupt everyday habits and invite embodied, emotional engagement. Through solo making and public exhibits, the project blends critical design with an emphasis on play, accessibility, and visual storytelling as powerful alternatives to traditional research and education. This methodology later informed the development of a workshop series, the Eat, Make, Waste Project, which integrates public pedagogy with critical design.

Dinner gatherings are a time to celebrate food. We talk about the food, we touch the food, we eat the food and our bodies break the food down producing waste. Other waste such as the food packages are removed from this practice, the packages are most often discarded without a second thought. In this video, the packages become the centre piece of the table and much like the food prepared and consumed at the dinner party, the packaging is transformed through touching, feeling, ripping and breaking the packaging down, not unlike the way in which our bodies break down the food we consume. Through making these materials focal and central to the event of consumption, we can see this packaging as an integral part of our contemporary food culture.

Dinner gatherings celebrate the pleasures of food—but rarely the packaging. This video re-centers food packaging as part of the consumption ritual. Much like our bodies digest what we eat, the packages are handled, ripped, and broken down at the table. These gestures draw attention to the overlooked life of packaging and highlight its role in shaping modern food culture. By making the waste visible and tactile, the video invites reflection on what we consume and discard, and how design can challenge the norms of value, visibility, and material engagement.

a little sculpture of leftovers. — A sculpture of leftovers.

a collage of take-out containers — A collage of take-out containers