Dirty Hands: Carolien Niebling
Carolien Niebling (b. 1984, Maastricht) is a Zurich-based designer and researcher working at the intersection of food, science, and design.
Using food as a medium, she takes on roles as designer, strategist, consultant, teacher, and product developer to address global challenges in the food industry. Her studio focuses on creating future-proof, efficient innovations from within the system, helping corporations reimagine their role in sustainable food production.
Carolien holds a master’s in product design from ECAL, where she also taught after graduating in 2014. Her acclaimed book The Sausage of the Future (Lars Müller Publishers, 2017) exemplifies her method of combining scientific research with design thinking. She has received several major awards, including the Design Parade Hyères Grand Prix, the Hublot Design Prize (both 2017), and the Design Prize Switzerland (2019).
The event will take place on Monday, April 14, 2025, at 05:00 PM in Kunstraum 5.K12, Toni Areal. Carolien Niebling will give us an insight into her work, followed by time for an open discussion. Interested participants are warmly welcome.
Dirty Hands is an invitation to explore new ways of working—ways that are hands-on and reflective, experimental and critical, proactive and self-aware, deeply rooted in practice. It embraces contradiction, the tension between creation and consequence, and the need for design to evolve.
This lecture series explores the entangled relationships between design, ecology, technology, and society. It highlights the urgent need for approaches that bridge the gap between planetary limitations and human action.
We invite thinkers and makers to navigate these uncertainties with us—to get their hands dirty, share their practice, and rethink what design can and can't do.
