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How do we tell stories with living, messy data—like a jar of kimchi?
• 23. February - 23. March, 2026
• Online!
• Mondays, 6-8pm CET
• Small class of participants
• Certificate of Completion
Artist / Student (Full Time)
€245
Freelancer
€265
Professional
€295
Generous Supporter Ticket
€305
course
description
This online course introduces participants to creative data collection and storytelling tools across both analog and digital mediums. Specifically, we’ll explore data storytelling through the lens of fermentation. Across five online sessions, we’ll document the changes of kimchi and turn it into a creative data story. Participants will start their ferment together, learn how to track its changes, and sketch out a visual, sonic, or tactile narrative. Between sessions, we’ll monitor the ferment and gather data. Throughout the process, we’ll share our stories, merge the data to create a larger one, and compare each other’s taste experiments (if location allows it).
Data is often treated as static, objective, and impersonal—something precise and detached from human experience. But in reality, data is full of bias, ambiguity, and interpretation, especially when it’s collected by hand, in context, and over time. This course invites participants to challenge traditional notions of data by working with something truly alive: fermentation. By documenting the same microbial process in different jars, kitchens, and hands, participants will quickly notice: no two datasets and no two kimchis are the same. Smell, texture, pH, and even the meaning of “done” are deeply subjective. This hands-on work is meant to introduce participants to data humanism, revealing how personal, embodied, and unreliable data can be. In a moment where machine learning, surveillance systems, and “big data” shape our lives, it’s essential to pause and ask: where does this data come from? What kinds of data do we value, and why? This course offers an artistic data-backed response with tasty results.
In this course you will explore
Data journaling & tracking: observational methods (smell, pH, texture, time, temperature, location, vessel)
Google Sheets: for organizing fermentation data
Intro to low-coding data design tools: RawGraphs, Sonifyer
Physical making tools (drawing, collage, clay, or sculpture): for participants who prefer tangible storytelling
Optional sensors: such as pH strips, thermometers, or phone-based tracking apps, to capture data
The course emphasizes tool selection as part of the storytelling process, encouraging participants to choose mediums that they are comfortable with or curious to test out.
course
outline
Week 1: Empty jar, blank data
Kick things off by getting to know each other’s fermentation and data stories, as well as establishing a data humanism foundation. We will explore tools we can use to represent data and make it more human. This overview will include a playful intro to low-coding / visualization tools (Sonifyer, VCV Rack, RawGraphs) through a guided exercise using self-collected data.
Week 2: Kimchi fermentation
We will get our hands smelly with kimchi fermentation (vegan). and setting up our “data diary” using whatever tools feel natural—notes, sketches, voice memos, photos, spreadsheets, sensors, vibes. We’ll do a quick intro to fermentation (microbes: our tiny collaborators), then learn data collection methods you’ll use all month: temperature, smell, taste, pH, texture, sound, color, your imagination
Week 3: Senses as sensors
This week is about noticing (and admitting) how subjective measurement really is. We’ll compare what “sour,” “bubbly,” “done,” or “weird” means across different kitchens and bodies, and explore how bias isn’t a given in data collection. We’ll refine our logging ritual (analog, digital, or hybrid) and start shaping
a “fermentation timeline” that captures both numbers and the lived experience. We will make a quick sketch of our data that we will build on in the following week.
Week 4: Data storytelling & narrative structure
Now we translate: how do you turn scattered observations into something someone can feel? You’ll break your dataset and choose metrics to prototype a data story in your chosen medium: visual score, sonification, tactile map, short text, collage, zine, tiny performance, whatever speaks to you and your kimchi.
Week 5: The great merge
We combine forces: everyone shares their logs, and we merge datasets to see overlap, divergence, and glorious inconsistency. Where do our datasets agree, and where do they go in different directions? This is a collaborative studio week: you’ll use the merged dataset as raw material to sculpt, draw, map, code, sonify, or collage a shared “community kimchi story,” while also pushing your individual project forward. If there are participants in the same location, tasting each other’s kimchi is encouraged.
who is this
class for?
This course is for anyone curious about fermentation, storytelling, or slow design. Ideal for artists, designers, technologists, and food lovers who want to get their hands dirty and rethink what data can be. No technical or fermentation experience needed.
meet the
instructor
Maxene Graze
Data Visualization Engineer, Researcher
With a background in biological and linguistic academic research, an interdisciplinary approach is the core of her data design practice. By day, she's a Senior Data Visualization Engineer at King. By night, she integrates data into some of her hobbies: ceramics, fermentation, and language learning. These hobbies serve as a basis to explore innovative methods in data design, including multisensory representations that combine visual, auditory, and haptic stimuli to enhance understanding and engagement with data. Her work aims to bridge the gap between human experience and data analysis.
datagrazing.com/