For my thesis, I am doing a series of meals for an individual and a person of their choice. After several large-scale events, such as Uprooted and Pietopia, I decided to take a more personal approach to the meanings behind food and the action of eating. Participants can choose anyone be it someone they know, don’t know, admire, love, hate, is related to, not related to, dead, or alive. I then take the design challenge to create a full sensory (all five senses are activated) experience for the participant and their Favorite who may or may not be present for the experience. The meal itself is determined on who the participants are, anything from breakfast to cocktails to a midnight snack. The aim of these meals is to explore the more intimate portrait of a community. Each designed experience requires heavy research, open communication between myself and the participant, my reinterpretation of who this person may be and what they are like prescribed through the visual aesthetic, where the meal is held, and recipes that I create and/or find.
I have created a series of questions that I give to each participant to help get the design process started. They are:
1. Think of a person whom you’d love to have a meal with.
2. Answer these:
who-they are
why-they have been chosen
what-they have done
how-they have touched your life
3. Think about the flavors that come to mind when thinking of this person, whether you know for sure they “like” them or not is unimportant, go with your gut here and make a list.
4. What meal would be most appropriate? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, snacks, cocktails, midnight snack, whenever!
5. What place do you think of or associate this person with? Is it a room? another city? a climate? where?
6. What smells come to mind when thinking of this person and are they associated with anything tactile? (ex: a grandmothers perfume and her favorite scarf… a newborn’s scent and it’s baby blanket…)
7. Find one piece of memorabilia that you have of this person, anything that you use as a visual for remembering (ex: a book, a photo, a sweater, a trinket, a necklace, a newspaper article, a movie, a poster, a cd, a toy, a letter ….. )
So far, I have done two. I have about six more coming down the pipe, all completely different and really neat which I am so excited about. For example, someone chose a fairy tale character, a grandmother who is alive, the elusive Florence Broadhurst, and a grandfather who has passed, with a few more on the way. It is so neat to see how food and the senses shape our memories, actions, and lives. It is also fascinating to see what we associate with food or how we can express/communicate our stories through food. Stay tuned for more of these events, I will be posting about them as they are created. Cheers!
