Guided by materials, Tanya Schultz often gathers sources on her travels throughout South Korea and Japan and “Lands of Plenty” (utopian worlds made of food) from folklore and mythology. Inspired by Japanese and Korean folktales “where rocks or mountains have the potential to come to life,” Schultz has incorporated more creatures in her work. She particularly likes a Dutch folktale called Luilekkerland of “lazy-luscious-land.”

“There’s a river of lemonade,” says Schultz. “To get to it you have to eat through a mountain of pudding.” But these tales can be cautionary. “It’s like that sense of appeal and desire, but also gluttony or danger – what happens if you can have anything you want?” Schultz likes riding that line between sweetness and ice cream headache as much of her work is dizzying.

“... what happens if you can have anything you want?”

In her gallery and museum installations, Schultz uses actual loose sugar, but later adjusted to using hardened sugar and other materials during Pip & Pop’s first permanent installation. She relies on her partner Chad Hedley and her two assistants Alina Tang and Bodie Hartley to help install her exhibitions.