Banquet collaboration
29/01/2020
Ladies fingers, doughnuts, mustard, mushy peas, liquorice all sorts, orange segments, marshmallow sandwiches, whipped cream, gherkins, angel slices, icing, marshmallows, jam, party rings, sultanas, trifle, fairy cakes, hot dogs, lemon roulade, pineapple rings, strawberry milk, waffles, limes, foam teeth, caramels, pick n mix, fish head and tail, cocktail umbrellas, cocktail decorations.
4hrs
This is performance and a collaboration with Harriet Gascoyne at our open studio. We took this opportunity to create an interactive piece, where by members of the art school had the freedom to approach the banquet and to play around with what we had lain out. The banquet was an amalgamation of the food listed above. We used the excessively luxurious colours and textures to draw people in and encourage them to approach the banquet. The richness of these elements descised what lay within. On closer inspection these sweet appealing flavours were mingaled unsettlingly with tastes of meat and mushy peas. Its beauty quickly turns sour. As the food began to turn the grotesque increaseingly took on the proponent role. One began to question how 'sweet' and 'appealing' the banquet really was.
Looking at the work of Greta Alfaro, particualrly her piece named "in Ictu Oculi" (in the blink of an eye), has help fule ideas. The piece depicts a empty, open air banquet which is quickly over taken by hungry vultures. The framing of the table gives the imagery weighty biblical illusions to the last supper, with the arrival of the vultures referencing the death and treachery looming in the biblical tale.Food and loss are often associated with one another in art, particularly through the theme of death. Memento mori paintings often feature rotting fruit to reference the passing of time and life, making food in art often seem unsettling.
Whereas the vultures demolished Alfraro's banquet within a matter on minutes, we were dealing with quite a different selection of guest. Guest that were, if anything, ambivalent to provoke the supposed beauty and harmony of our piece. Although, this is not how we expected people to respond it gave us the opportunity and time to watch the food transform. The violence in Alfaro banque came from the speed in which the vulture demolished the food. In ours, the violence came much slower but equally as foul. The potent rotting smell of the pickles still linger in the studio the next day. It was interesting how little of the typically unpleasant food were needed in order to transform the 'appetising' food into something 'unappetising'. Cheap, unhealthy and excessively sweet perhaps the reality behind this 'appetising' food is not actally disguised so effectively under its colourful surface?
With all this talk of the grotesque it is important to say how careful we needed to be to not over do it. We still wanted an aspect of participation. Without this the work would became purely aesthetic, it would loose people responses to the food and a vital element of conversation. Ironically, it was not the gross parts of banquet which made people pause but, in fact, the beauty of it. People seemed almost in disbelief despite our encouragement to play and disrupt. There was a general lack of trust, almost as if they thought we were tricking them. As if they had their own internalised rules telling them not to disorder the pristineness of the display. I wonder if we had made it less beautiful, and less assemble, then would it have made it easier for people to interact?
Food does not need to be gross to be complex and overwhelming. Even the most appertising of meal can trigger challenging and unpleasant thoughts. With this in mind, no wonder the dystopian demanding dinner ladies me Harriet became, in our desire to get people involved, made our guest unsure. Eating can be hard at the best of times and I can resonate with both the characters we embodied and with the response we they got to them. For this reason, and despite our lack of preconceived intentions, this banquet was an extremely enjoyable experience and demonstrated unexpected thing for me.
Context:
Greta Alfaro, particualrly her piece named "in Ictu Oculi"
Věra Chytilová's Daisies
unexpectedly as the banquet when on in created the space for me Harriet to play. The documentation photos we took interesting resemble a scene in the Czech film Daisies by Vera Chyilova.
