Bone Cracker: Surgical Training with Edible Body Simulator - Lab4Living | Design for Health & Wellbeing

4 May 2023

Over the next week, the Citizen Surgery Collective presents work exploring surgery and simulating bones through the experiences of baking and tasting at two festivals. Firstly, BoneCracker (2023) film was presented in the Official Selection (Micro Short Category) of the Vesuvius International Film Festival in Italy on 2 May. Next week, Prof Kaisu Koski and Noémie Soula head to Maastricht to run a workshop at Making Together, a festival celebrating creativity in healthcare professions education. The festival runs from 9 to 12 May 2023 and Kaisu and Noémie will run the Bone Cracker workshop on Wed 10 May.

Bone Cracker is the latest enquiry of the interdisciplinary Citizen Surgery Collective, made up of Lab4Living’s Kaisu Koski and Noémie Soula, and Anne van Veen. Their work concerns surgical literacy, sensory skills acquisition, and the relationship between (non)human animal bodies and food. Previous work, Dermabread, has explored the anatomy of the skin through food.

Project page >> Citizen Surgery

Bone Cracker workshop

The workshop offers surgical and anatomical training through the experiences of baking and tasting. The Bone Cracker simulates the anatomy of the bone and various kinds of bone conditions.

This workshop’s learning objectives include the identification of diverse bone shapes, degrees of bone density, and the ability to reunite broken bones. Participants will receive a recipe, ingredients, and instructions for creating different types of Bone Crackers. The group will explore the material properties of the dough used for bone molding and the various shapes, textures, and densities of the crackers. The speculative cooking class will conclude with diagnostic tea and crackers to share our sensory findings in the group. All levels of baking experience and knife skills are welcome.

Kaisu recently recorded a podcast, Operation Mango, to discuss how working with fruit might provide new insights into surgical practice, which you can read more about here.