PROPOSAL

EVALUATION + STATEMENT

SOBREMESA — Statement

The modern-day nomad is a person who struggles to identify their home and identity, because there is hardly anything that is stagnant in their lives.

Through this journey of re-enacting a family meal, I came to realise it’s normally over food, and with close ones that we define as home. But most importantly home doesn’t have to be anything physical, it is the feeling of belonging, that warmth that is familiar all of when we share a good meal.

SOBREMESA — Evaluation

Firstly, I have achieved my goals: I concluded what it meant to be a nomad, I experimented with constructing social spaces, and collected information from those spaces. I wanted to implement Commune’s the concept of gathering people into a designed space to see what happens and use it as a method of answering my question. I was drawn by food’s role in bringing together people, the symbolism behind certain food, and also its ability to ability to carve out a space and alter the environment it is in. I experimented with various iterations of rituals involving food, and experimented with the scale, level of participation of the participants, and how instructions were relayed to them.

I learnt that a space can never force a topic out of its participants, it can only guide. I approached this project as an interrogation, and I felt I could have gotten more information and stories out of people if I didn’t treat this as an exchange. I feel this was the least successful aspect of my project, and only if I made it less like a barter, I would have gotten deeper responses. On the other hand, the script was successful because through type and format it immediately set the tone of the scene and gives instructions with an authoritative feel.

My research was not balanced, I neglected the practical side and spent too much time on the theoretical aspect; I focused on researching rituals and culture, but when it came to creating something communicative I struggled to convey what I have learnt, and I believe if I had allocated more time into reading about practitioners who work in a similar way, I could have produced a publication that accurately reflects the research. 

I did improve on my time organisation skills. I realised the urgency of researching, and since I didn’t do as much for the practical research, in the future I will plan further ahead to put in ample time for both theoretical and practical research. I learnt I don’t act on my plans because I don’t feel urgency, but from this project I know that a properly researched project takes about a month’s worth of researching.

The most important thing I have learnt is how to direct my own project, and to gradually shape the research into something I am interested in. All this means I need to force myself to come up with rules, so I can produce an outcome.

I also did face my fear of interacting with others and creating works that revolve on others. Ever since the INTERACT project I was obsessed with making a better version of an interaction piece, and this time I succeeded.

If I had more time I would have devised another method of presenting my script and zines, but honestly, I think I have exhausted my project’s potential, and now I just want to move on. I feel what’s best is to apply what I have learnt in a next self-directed project and keep this momentum up.