Design Map · Eindhoven
Korean(Rice)Cake
Graduation project by Saeneul Song at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
A tower of rice cakes waits to be destroyed, one sweet bite at a time. Shaped like the woven bags once used to ship Korean rice off to imperial Japan, these rice cakes double as dessert and history lesson. Best enjoyed with some patience. In this cooking performance, Saeneul Song remakes a staple snack with inquisitive attention to detail. While visitors queue to get a bite, a cooking tutorial with a subverted narration reveals the underlying story: Baekseolgi, the purest and simplest of Korean rice cakes, quietly vanished from state banquets in favour of Western alternatives. The rice itself, along with the labour of Korean farmers, was extracted to feed the colonisers. Each cake eaten chips away at the tower's imposing silhouette, turning a snack break into a small, tasty act of unmaking. Sweetness, it turns out, buys rather a lot of necessary attention.