About the project

From Gaja is an ongoing project I began developing as a design student at Design Academy Eindhoven (BA 2023). What started as a personal project about healing my body and soul through being in and with nature, became my practice through which I teach and empower others to do the same. I conduct foraging workshops, create herbal products, and collaborate in culinary projects as a forager and food designer. Most of my workshops happen with local community (so far in Eindhoven and currently in Ljubljana).

During my time at academy, much of the discourse was on discussing and theorizing about environmental issues and humanity’s disconnection from nature, indoors. I missed a more hands-on, practical approach, one that involved direct contact with the environment. I believe that only by truly experiencing and engaging with something can we develop a real connection to it and, in turn, care for it. And as we know, Earth needs much healing. Foraging thus becomes a way of practical education, terraforming, and holistic health.

A blue wavy ceramic plate serves moss-looking bread garnished with Kombucha jelly, Fig-infused mayonnaise and red radishes. Two hands are finishing the garnish with pickled Sea Fennel.

A group of people is gathered around the big white elongated table on a rooftop. On the table there are various ceramic objects and dishes with plated food. Some people are eating, some are observing and others are photographing the table.

About the project’s approach

My approach is in the first place practical and embodied, it involves people and the rest of nature as part of one body.

I have been designing and facilitating gardening and foraging workshops since 2020. I teach about the plants with the special focus on urban flora (plants resilient to impacts of human behaviour) and ethnobotany (stories of plants and their impact on human culture).

In order to make them truly accessible, they have been mostly free or supported by local organisations, communal gardens and platforms similar to yours. I am striving to incorporate concepts of communal economies into my practice, not limiting it to monetary exchange. Knowledge of nature and self is and should be available to all. So I bridge this gap also by making free content and sharing it on my social media ( @fromgaja).

Besides practical workshops, I work in culinary projects as a forager and food designer. I transform my knowledge and design skills into a different context to tell stories of nature through food.

A group of nine people is gathered in an open space in a park. They are facing each other and discussing foraging. Two people are holding plants, one person is holding a small book about foraging.

About the designer

I’m Gaja Pegan Nahtigal (b. 1996), a musician, forager and transdisciplinary designer from Slovenia, currently based in Ljubljana. During my studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven (BA 2023- departments: Public/Private, Technogeographies), I focused on environmental regeneration, urban nature, third landscapes and community building.

Over the past five years, I’ve been organising and facilitating foraging and cooking workshops, lectures, and educational programs (FromGaja) and contributed to project as a member of Krater Collective (Feral Palace, BIO27, Building with Earth).