Food city Ho Chi Minh City: designing relational mapping of the culture of place

This research investigates the novel design and implementation of a relational mapping of city spaces, based on research conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The experimental mapping employs relational methods of exploration to document and understand the city. A special Memefest mapping workshop used food as a key medium for some of the relationships that underpin the culture, community, and the city itself. This paper outlines the design of a sensory based exploration and creative mapping of food culture in Ho Chi Minh City and puts special emphasis in the atmospheres that are created through the relations between food, community, and the structures that underlie these. Lastly the paper shows an example of installations and explains how they work as (post) representational maps of relations and atmospheres.