Boston and New YorkBoston and NY

Beyond the Alps: Sweet Entanglements

Swissnex and metaLAB (at) Basel present an experiential lecture-workshop on the metabolic, cultural, and technological entanglements of sugar, from Swiss chocolate to maple syrup, in the context of the metaLAB’s human-ecological health research focus.

Whether as Swiss chocolate, New England maple syrup, or a thousand other forms, sugars have saturated the modern diet. We have, in a sense, all become hummingbirds: our bodies’ ability to process unprecedented sugar levels has come to mimic, increasingly, the hummingbird’s rapid energy processing. Medical and pharmacological interventions, from glucose sensors to GLPs and automated insulin delivery systems, mediate and adapt our metabolic life to the modern sugar fixation.

Metabolism, in turn, mediates our relationship with the more-than-human world, connecting us to vast networks of life—from gut microbes to maple groves. At the same time, it profoundly shapes how we experience, sense, and perceive the world around us, offering a lens through which to explore the entanglements of bodies, environments, and technologies.

Join us for an experiential lecture-workshop exploring sugar’s metabolic, cultural, and technological entanglements. Drawing on experimental methods from speculative design, mind-body relations, and critical health tech, the program explores how food and sensing can mediate broader ecological and technological questions —with Swiss chocolate and Massachusetts maple syrup as anchors. More than a panel discussion, this is a slow, hands-on assembly—a shared tasting of sweet, sweet entanglements.

This event is presented in collaboration with metaLAB (at) Basel—a research group of the FHNW Institute for Contemporary Design Practices and part of the expanded metaLAB network (Harvard–Berlin–Basel): metaLAB (at) Harvard, metaLAB (at) Basel, Institute for Contemporary Design Practices (ICDP).

Beyond the Alps is an event series that explores Swiss culture through a contemporary and future-oriented lens. Moving beyond traditional images of mountains, chocolate, and cheese, the series showcases the evolving and innovative faces of “Swissness” in the modern world.

Program

  • 5:30pm – Doors Open
  • 6:00pm – Welcome & introduction to metaLAB (at) Basel
  • 6:40pm – "We Are All Hummingbirds Now"
  • 7:10pm – Workshop & Sensory Meditation
  • 7:30pm – Aperitif
  • 8:30pm – End
Add to Google calendar
iCal / Outlook

Event start time

  • Boston

    5:30PM

Speakers

  •

    Bio

    Aylin Tschoepe

    metaLAB (at) Basel, ICDP FHNW

    Aylin Yildirim Tschoepe (Ph.D. Anthropology, Doctor of Design, MSc Inclusive Design) is Professor of Design Anthropology at the Basel Academy of Art and Design University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW, and guest lecturer at the University of Basel. She connects experience as an architect, designer, anthropologist, gender studies scholar and urbanist. As head of metaLAB (at) Basel and head of research at the Institute Contemporary Design Practices, Aylin pursues and fosters collaborative research at the crossings of design, technology, life sciences, and social sciences, as well as transdisciplinary collaborations with cultural institutions and the public. Her research focuses on human-ecological future health, bodies and spaces as living archives, entangled commons and extended reality environments, exploring these through a multimodal framework of design, spatial and sensory ethnography, expanded scenography, and feminist spatial practice.

  •

    Bio

    Jamie Allen

    metaLAB (at) Basel

    Jamie Allen is a cultural organiser and researcher whose work bridges design, media, ecology, and infrastructure. As Senior Researcher at the Critical Media Lab Basel and affiliate of metaLAB (at), he creates collaborative tools, performances, and publishing platforms that explore how knowledge, energy, and meaning circulate in social and technical systems. His projects—ranging from sound installations about shipwrecks to participatory rituals of metabolic care—highlight the poetic and political dimensions of infrastructure. Trained in engineering and media arts, Jamie’s practice brings together speculative design, situated research, and public-making to prototype more equitable ways of sensing and sharing the world.

  •

    Bio

    Sara Krugman

    Designer & Diabetes Technologist

    Sara Krugman is a designer and researcher transforming diabetes technology through strategic design research. As Director of Verse Design, she bridges the gap between people with diabetes, clinicians, and technology companies. With 15+ years of expertise, Sara has shaped user experiences for major diabetes tools including the iLet, Tidepool, and DiabetesWise.org, while consulting with companies like Tandem, Medtronic, UCSF, and Lilly. She was recently Designer in Residence at UCSD’s Center for Health and Design, exploring how visual representation shapes our understanding of health.A contributor to the #WeAreNotWaiting movement, Sara combines professional design expertise with lived experience of Type 1 diabetes to create tools that address real-world needs. Her work specializes in automated systems and human-technology collaboration, bringing both rigorous research and authentic community insight to healthcare innovation.

  •

    Bio

    Serena Cangiano

    SUPSI, metaLAB affiliate

    Dr. Serena Cangiano is Senior Researcher at the Design Institute, founder and Head of FabLab SUPSI, faculty and board member of the MA in Interaction Design, focusing on multimodal experience design and experimental practices for transformative processes in education, research, and innovation. Her research explores digital literacy and co-creation for complex social issues. She contributed to books like Reprogrammed Art, Rebelling with Care, and Digital Transformation in Design (2024). Serena serves on the boards of the Swiss Design Network and Swiss Design Association, and she is principal at Metalab Harvard-Berlin-Basel.

Partners