Reference: TURNER001
Title: Carnerie
Date: 2021
Author: Alice Turner
Details: Cultured meat is the process of growing meat from cells extracted from animals. Many experts believe that cultured meat offers us the opportunity to produce meat with significantly reduced environmental impacts and without slaughtering animals. The technology is being rapidly developed across the world and is beginning to be introduced to some high-end restaurants but there has been discussion about whether one day we may be able to grow our own meat from animal cells in our own kitchens.
Media: Speculative Project
Credit: Courtesy of the artist

Description: Carnerie is a ‘grow your own meat’ device for around twenty years in the future. It is controlled by an app, whereby the user is able to order cell capsules from local farms in order to grow a variety of different types of meat. This conceptual, speculative project is designed to help us visualise what this future scenario could be like and whether it’s a future that we would buy in to. By exciting, shocking or even repulsing the viewer it enables us to question our existing meat consumption habits and whether they need to change.

I am a product designer with a passion for socially inclusive and environmentally conscious design. The central aim of my projects is to be as thought provoking, meaningful and empathetic as possible, I design products and services that challenge the status quo and aim to make a positive impact on the world around us. Carnerie represents my design ethos and I hope to create more products like this.

Reference: TURNER002
Title: Carnerie [Process]
Date: 2020–21
Author: Alice Turner
Details: iPad sketching, 3D printed detail models and card sketch models.
Media: Sketches and Models
Credit: Courtesy of the artist

Description: My process relies on fast-paced sketching and model-making that helps visualise my ideas. Here you see a selection of the sketches and sketch models that guided my decision making throughout the Carnerie project.

Reference: TURNER003
Title: Clean Meat, How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World
Date: 2018
Author: Paul Shapiro
Details: An exploration into the future of cellular agriculture.
Media: Publication
Credit: books.google.co.uk/Clean_Meat

Description: It is this text that inspired Carnerie, both the concept and the name. In the book, Shapiro shares the story of how clean meat may be the answer to reducing the catastrophic impacts of industrial livestock production from both an environmental and ethical viewpoint. He insightfully articulates how the future of cellular agriculture may be embedded into our lives and even explores the notion of everyday people growing their meat in a device called a Carnerie, much like how beer is brewed in a brewery. This book hugely inspired my project, as well as a new outlook on my own meat consumption habits.

Reference: TURNER004
Title: The Humble Post-it Note
Date: 1968
Author: , Dr. Spencer Silver, 3M
Details: A small piece of paper with a re-adherable strip of glue on its back, made for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces.
Media: Post-it Note
Credit: wikipedia.org/Post-it_Note

Description: The tool that enables me to think out loud.

Reference: TURNER005
Title: Nana Rose
Date: 1999
Author: Alice Turner’s Family
Details: ​Image of my nana holding me as a young child.
Media: Photograph
Credit: Courtesy of the artist

Description: Inspired by my nana’s brave fight against Dementia, my first social innovation project named ‘Dignify’ ignited a deep-rooted desire to design sensitively and consciously to better both the lives of people and our planet. It was a poignant turning point in my design education as once I began to understand creativity as a tool for change, I felt a sense of responsibility to create meaningful and provocative work.

Reference: TURNER006
Title: Blink Orb
Date: 2017
Author: SapientRazorfish
Details: ​‘A connected light experience that keeps families together’
Media: ​Product
Credit: designawards.core77.com/Blink

Description: The Blink Orb, in my opinion, is one of the most beautifully simple objects I have seen. In essence, it is a glowing sphere, but derived from such touching insight and compelling narrative, it is the story that makes this product special. Design is storytelling and the Blink Orb showed me how to share my voice through objects.

Reference: TURNER008
Title: The In-Vitro Meat Cookbook
Date: 2014
Author: Next Nature Network
Details: ​A speculative book of future cultured meat recipes
Credit: medium.com/the-in-vitro-meat-cookbook

Description: I believe this project depicts speculative design in its best form. By being interesting, imaginative and crucially controversial, it aims to democratise the discussion around cellular agriculture at a societal level.

This project was one of the very few designs focused on the subject of cultured meat that I identified in my research and I was deeply inspired by how it plays “the ‘what if’ game to get people talking about their food and the future” (ABC News). By taking such a complex subject and translating it into a relatable, engaging topic, the In-Vitro meat cookbook acted as a best-in-class example of how to ignite discussions about cultured meat.