JUNGMIN YOON
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Tasting Tomorrow (2026)
Data-Driven Future Organisms
Environmental Data × Future Food × More-than-human Life
<Tasting Tomorrow> is a speculative design project exploring how environmental change could reshape the species we eat and the ecosystems they inhabit. Drawing on environmental datasets from NASA, NOAA, GOA-ON, and EMODnet, alongside conversations with scientists from NASA’s Ocean Biology Processing Group, the project translates changing environmental conditions into speculative transformations in morphology, texture, colour, and behaviour.
The research was further developed through How to Grow (Almost) Anything (HTGAA), a programme in bioengineering and synthetic biology, alongside conversations with researchers in synthetic biology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), Cambridge. Through physical specimens, moving image, and immersive installation, the project brings these possible biological futures into tangible form.
Data · Food · Body · Experience
We are surrounded by climate data. Yet these changes often reach us as numbers, graphs, and distant projections, making them difficult to grasp as lived realities.
<Tasting Tomorrow> began by asking how this invisible data could become something we can see, touch, and experience through everyday life. Food became the medium — something familiar and intimate, yet directly shaped by the environments in which it grows and lives.
From the vast range of ingredients we consume, the project focuses on species that are particularly sensitive to environmental change and can reveal its effects relatively quickly. By tracing how shifts in temperature, acidity, moisture, and other environmental conditions could affect their bodies, these everyday ingredients become tangible indicators of a changing environment.
Rather than asking audiences simply to understand climate data, Tasting Tomorrow invites them to encounter what those changes might eventually look and taste like.
Speculative Species, 2086 — Mushroom (left) / Oyster (right)
Speculative Species, 2086 — Leaf (left) / Fruit (right)
Speculative Species, 2086 — Mushroom Colony (left) / Shrimp (right)
Speculative Species, 2086 — Berry (left) / Fruit (right)
Environmental Data · Biological Research · Translation Rules · Morphology
The process began by researching how environmental change affects the growth, behaviour, and physical characteristics of different species. Environmental datasets were combined with scientific literature and conversations with researchers to identify key factors such as temperature, ocean acidification, humidity, soil moisture, and microplastics.
These findings were then translated into visual rules connecting environmental conditions to changes in form, texture, colour, surface, and behaviour. Through sketching and morphological studies, I explored different possibilities before developing them into speculative species and physical specimens.
Morphological sketches derived from data-driven
environmental speculation
environmental speculation
Normalisation · Mapping Rules · Biological Traits · Transformation
Rather than treating climate data as abstract numerical information, the project uses a structured mapping system to translate environmental conditions into biological characteristics. Each dataset is normalised and connected to specific morphological responses — from changes in texture and colour to translucency, surface structure, and bodily form.
For example, rising temperatures can trigger changes in scale and form, while increasing ocean acidification can affect surface structure and translucency. These rules are informed by research into ecological adaptation and environmental stress responses, creating a framework for developing speculative future organisms.
Environmental Data → Normalisation →
Mapping Rules → Biological Traits → Morphology
Moving Image · Habitat · Behaviour · Microscopic Imagery
The physical specimens were extended into moving image to imagine how these species might live, move, and behave within future environments. Each sequence places the speculative organisms back into the environmental conditions that shaped their transformation, expanding them from static specimens into living ecosystems.
Microscopic footage was also used to reveal details of surface, texture, and material, shifting between different scales of observation and bringing audiences closer to these unfamiliar forms of life.