Dana Douiev: Injera

For her final project at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Dana Douiev explores the African and Ethiopian culture in relation to agriculture and food.

With Injera, a set of utensils for a new preparation ceremony of injera (an Ethiopian national dish made out of out of teff flour), Dana Douiev explores the African and Ethiopian culture in relation to agriculture and food.

The project combines tradition and innovation, and thereby makes the teff accessible to the modern kitchen.

The teff is a “super food” that has high nutritional values and is the basis for the preparation of injera- a sponge-like fermented bread that holds a monumental place in the Ethiopian kitchen. The teff stands at the gates of modern culture and this project comes to welcome it in through the use of new utensils.

Through these utensils the “new ceremony” takes place, in which cultural elements are renewed. Elements that have been lost during the cultural migration from village to city, and from inside Ethiopia to foreign countries. All this takes place appropriately and with consideration to the modern kitchen’s space.