I want to construct an experience, using people and food to create a ritual. I want to bring out the evocative nature of food, to address that preparing food is something we have been doing for way too long, and food is so much more than just nourishment. 

Hearth Day Review:

What I thought went well in my performance was how we actually created a space within the classroom; and instead of the bread being the tool, it was the "chanting" that made this kind of cultish. As mentioned by them, I can increase the scale by simply including more people, and then maybe setting up the environment for my ritual; however after this I feel the ritual/performance format is too rigid, and I cannot have any meaningful dialogue between the participants, and I should make this more interactive rather than like Gormley using the body as a found object.

Object + Text:

With image settled, I focused on object and text for my next direction for my bread. I really liked seeing the bread up close, and I wondered what would happen if I used bread to print... and so I made stamps out of dried bread. I thought to really capture the details of the bread I should use the negative space of it to define the letters, I mean it did work, like it soaked up the ink but that's it, the prints on paper were blobs of colour. Looking back, I could have used the stickier printing ink in school, but I'm not sure if that could save my printing blocks, the bread was also crumbly and hard to carve into. Maybe the simpler way is to use them as stencils, and instead of cutting around the letter, I could eat them instead?

As for the object, my friend jokingly said what happens if I baked a 1m cubed bread, and immediately I thought of bread in a Whiteread style, using bread as the negative space of something. Then I remembered bread is actually the foundation of civilisation, similar to bricks of a building, so I can use them as bricks. I made a total of four bricks, of which only one resembled an actual brick and the rest looked like rustic unshaped bread...

I was also intrigued by how people would react to the bread, because there wasn't a lot of room for response for my ritual, I did not expect people would, for example come asking if they could eat my bricks. On the other hand, Chris mentioned that to him bread reminded him of his son, how he would make it a day before and then eat it with everybody the next day--it was bread's physical and emotive aspects that I needed to make it clearer for others, and my brick bread lacked a direction.

I got a bit lost in this project, in the beginning I wanted to work on bread's social connotations, and I actually forgotten about it and got too engrossed in the kneading and baking. Rereading reflections makes sense, and I'm not sure why I haven't been doing so, because too often I forget what I wrote.

What I needed to focus on was how to make the interaction more evident, like what are people supposed to do. The bread was inviting because of its smell and colour, and I needed to provide clues as to what to do next. For instance, I could do something similar to pop-up restaurants, as they are really just condensing what eating really is, having an experience. A pop up restaurant offers the flexibility of enjoying a meal in areas proper restaurants either can't be in or take too long.

It isn't enough to be interested in people's response, but also to guide them into doing something. My next outcome I need to consider and expect something from my participants.

Lastly, I didn't achieve my original goal of understanding nomads set in my PPP. I don't feel bad because I thought this new idea is more interesting, and I saw the PPP as a rough idea that is like my first step. I feel that when I do more research on a topic I get more invested into it, and in this case I only started researching after I planned my PPP, and so it was hard to plan what I was going to do without any prior knowledge to it. For my next project, I will actually carry out a series of little experiments, jot some basic ideas here and there before I plan my PPP.

It was great that we didn’t get people to partake in our little picnic, it made me think about something I often neglect—how others feel. Sharo and I fretted over stuff that didn’t matter, and with that time we could have considered how to make our participants feel at ease when eating our bread.

I thought simply putting up free food would get lots of response, what I didn’t consider was how others felt, heck I wouldn’t be part of an art student’s project even if it said free food also. Maybe it’s because in a city like London, where trusting too much can endanger yourself, people learnt to be sceptical to protect themselves. Putting themselves out there, to participate in this performance piece makes them vulnerable, and not everybody can do that, especially those just strolling around in Brick Lane on a Sunday afternoon.

Now to make this experiment successful…we need to make people trust us, so we can get their stories. Packaged food makes it look safer to consume, it also shows the effort that went into the prep that might make it more inviting for people, but I’m not into that, I want the conversation that happens during eating. That’s why after talking to Tim I realised aside from working with Sharo, I need to have my own ritual over food by myself. I will construct a ritual, that condenses the meal eating experience and interact with my participants. To have a large body of stuff to work from, I will document every aspect of it, that could be the meal prep to cleaning up so in the end the work itself becomes the outcome.  

Ultimately what Sharo and I want from our Bartering project are stories, stories that reveal a bit about the participants identity, and the food eases the tension. I want to learn about interaction from another perspective, and then put it into my own little ritual, and see what happens.

-You can never be as unique/individualistic as you think you are, because the real "you" takes up only a little space, whereas your education, culture, species and upbringing are all more important

-Helsinki Bus station analogy: your destination is never going to be close, it will take a long time and when you reach it don't fret that you are not as original as you think you are

-I should create stuff that I like the look of and also what I care about; combine the two and you're good

-Enemies suck, adversaries are better

After talking to my flatmate Paula, I changed my thoughts on Gursky's stuff. Her appreciation of his works comes from his ability to inspire her to shoot more, specifically how to recreate shots in places she is familiar with. She also said that his shots are always structured and precise, and that's what I find hard to wrap my head around, that structured and neat things can also be meaningful. I don't think I like organised and neat shots, because I always think they lack an element of spontaneity, and that no perfectly structured shot can ever capture whatever true intention that falls on the film. 

On the other hand, Gurksy is a talented photographer, and maybe he can plan and shoot the perfect shot without delay, but it does create a sense of artificiality doesn't it? Maybe just like there is no such thing as originality, artificiality in photography doesn't exist either, and I should just throw out that everything needs to be a blur to be real. 

Results:

Italian man

His most memorable meal, or more like the types of meal was when his grandmother would cook for all those working on the fields, and it was simple Italian food but he remembered how everybody including him would return from the fields. We talked about farmer markets and he knows what food is since he farmed before. and the experience of eating and farming together. He is from central Italy, and he's here for some restaurant business. He lives in Northern London and visits farmers market often to prep ingredients to cook pasta with his daughter and wife. 

Sharo and I talked about our approach to starting the conversation, she said she's too long winded and often side track, like in this case she asked about farmer markets and where does he go, and I wanted to ask about how food and identity relates, and actually I don't know the answer I want myself so I ask them directly if they can provide the answer that I want. Our conversation with the man was cut short when the people he was waiting for showed up, and we felt it was good for out first person, but we didn't delve any deeper into what he truly was. For the next person I thought I would lead the conversation, and ask him questions straight away.

Romanian man

Similarly, his most memorable meal was one made by his grandmother, and it was beans and whatever she could find around the house. This person didn't want to talk about his immediate family because they were never close, and it was his grandmother who took care of him. Grandmothers are always so passionate and Sharo and him talked about how grandmothers never cooked with precise measurements, and they often just can tell the quantity by their hands or the consistency of the mixture in their pans. This was a difficult conversation because I couldn't get him to open up as easy as the previous man, but once Sharo started talking about his grandmother, and who he cooks for and about the food here in London, he opened up immediately. He talked about how he always cooked for his flatmates, and although they never clean up the dishes like they promised to do so, he would just cook because he also wanted to eat. He was also dismayed at the majority of the people here didn't want to know where their food comes from and can settle with food that can grow a few centimetres everyday, and the price we pay for food sold by farmers are too expensive. He asked us what the bread and wine was for, and we said over bread and wine it would be easier to start a conversation, which was weird because when we first approached him he said outright that he didn't trust our food and would rather just answer our questions. I felt we got off to a bumpy start, but once Sharo joined in the mood was less tense. He told us our food reminded him of the tv seriesVikings he watches and they would celebrate with bread and wine after each raid, and what's interesting was they raided because they needed land to grow their food. I don't think the Vikings practiced crop rotation back then, so their soil was often of low quality and always needed more land to grow and feed their increasing population. He told us he descended from the Dacians, and the thought his bloodline included warriors fascinated him, and he said now as a cook he joked that he wasn't making his ancestors proud. 

Summary of stories:

BREAKFAST: P

Since childhood, she felt different from those around her and wanted to go to London, in hopes of finding people similar to her. Her most memorable meal was with her friend's family, and seeing a "full" family in front of her, and also being an outsider, she felt the warmth of the family unit. She hopes to have a family of her own, a "proper" one with two parents.

LUNCH: R

An annual dinner with her mum after the exams, she would have Shanghainese cuisine and it has become a ritual. Back in school, art was the only course that she enjoyed doing, and not just good at it. She had stellar grades in other courses, but felt that it was always too competitive for reasons she felt unnecessary. 

DINNER: J

Another celebration of the end of exam period, his meal was with his family. What I found was interesting was how you found this course to be very different from back home; when he asks what else he can do for his outcomes, tutors would respond "it's up to you". Both of us never really had the chance to exercise that thought very often, and that leaves us quite disappointed because we think we don't have an inner voice. 

All three told me these memories would have never been retrieved if it wasn't for this ritual. Unlike Bartering, the fact that the food wasn't at the centre of the piece made the conversations easier and more authentic. It was possible to go deep with people you already know a little bit, and it isn't feel rushed or awkward. I think I implemented the social format from commune to my ritual pretty well, it brought people together who otherwise wouldn't have done so. I'm also now left with lots of photos of the meals and stories, and I was thinking of emulating the look of Jim Goldberg's Raised by Wolves, in a publication format.

Input for Bartering project:

Since I felt the bread in the box felt a bit like a gimmick, they suggested I could exchange food with others, and culminate a bag's worth of stuff I get in exchange from people. Martha's story of her most memorable meal was interesting also, she recommended I see giving food as giving life too, as it was so in her case. 

I didn't really have anything concrete to ask for feedback on, I know what I wanted to do, and I just wanted to hear what others are doing.

Pizza:

Process driven exploration, that was all I was thinking about when I went inside the workshop. Unlike drawing or working digitally, I can't really just start working and expect ideas to flow, and that's when I realise when working with less malleable objects I need to start with an idea first. I started with something as simple and symbolic as bread, pizza. I wanted to shape the vacuum form plastic with a heat gun, because I haven't tried it before. At the end of Day 1, I got a very modern pizza, and I thought it was a good start, and the next step is to make a detailed version of the plastic bit, then place it on top of a piece of wood as its base.

After I made the mould out of clay, I vacuumed formed it. The first version I heated up with the heat gun for too long, and I lost half of the details from the clay, so the next one I simply cut around the edges and stuck it on the panel.

I've gotten comments about how the clay variant made them hungry, but I was thinking about whether 'wasted exploration' exists, because I felt I wasted my time making it. Sure yes, now I know making pizza isn't very beneficial, and the tools in the workshop a little better, but shouldn't there be better ways to use my time to create more insightful explorations? 

Yes ok, the pizza is the ultimate food that unites us modern nomads together, it is immediately recognisable and it is mostly eaten with others.

Recently Archway received the new Epson V800 scanner, and the results after scanning with it are a world of difference compared to my current one (the one not meant for negatives). By surrounding the negative with glass on both sides, the light from the scanner can shine through, so they are generally clearer. 

Immediately I can tell if my photo is overexposed or underexposed, using the new scanner I can actually correct my shots, whereas the one at home gives all my scans a sepia hue, and it has less definition. With those scans I collaged it with handwritten words I also scanned of my friends, because I want to see how a photo looks next to a piece of text. I like the slight transparency of the markers on the paper, but when it's next to a photo, I feel the texture between these two objects are too distant, and they don't feel unified like Goldberg's collages. Photos provide a narrative, and so does the words, but maybe it needs to be less colourful, and the photo needs to have a slight border around it before scanner. From this A3 experiment, if a collage with different textures are all done in a computer and printed out, it will be awkward. I will try printing both the photo and text out first, then scanning them together might make it look more together. 

Immediately I know that indoors in Barbican I cannot rely on my camera's in-built light meter, maybe because I did not centre the subject with the sensor, but I still need to bracket my shots to see what is the optimum setting for definition and light. 

I made a concertina foldout from my previous ritual, and I handed it to my friend for her opinion. It was good to hear that ritual for her means numerous other things, coming from a convent school her definition of ritual includes a sacrifice, in exchange from the gods for good fortune or insight.

She said it could be better if I divided the book to chapters, and make it clearer to her that everything came from the food preparation; everything being the stories and conversations that I got. Chapters divides the actual eating from the stories I get from the nomads, for example the first section of the book could be just shots of the meal, and the second one could be me translating the stories into other photographs. 

For this first version I struggled to find content to fit within the publication layout, because I still wasn't very clear on what I was trying to do. Because of this, I spent a long time figuring out how I should have my book laid out, I experimented with square pictures or booklets, when I should I have spent more time creating situations to get more information from the participants. 

I did enjoy the contrast between serif and sans-serif in my zine, I think it sets a tone that I wanted. I thought since the introduction was more than three sentences long I should adopt the sans serif, whereas the sentences were in serif because they were shorter and gave it a sense of importance. 

I printed with my sketchbook paper, and although the yellowish tinge looks good with black, the photos were all too dark. This could be due to the printer's settings, but on the computer the shots were also too dark. 

Next steps:

Keep everything simple, everything must revolve around us, around food and home is. I want

Instead of an individual ritual of different people, now it will be be inclusive of other people so it can be more a conversation instead of an interrogation.

Construct a book

Design a ritual that involves more than two people

Included in this section:

• Group Crit (2/04)
• Timetable planning
• Ritual Planning 
• Pre-ritual preparation 

Group Crit Pt.1 + Ritual Planning:

Prior to the crit, I only had rough ideas and not even a clear direction. I realised that unlike some of my friends in the group, I clear things out when I talk to people, and at the end of the crit I have a direction. 

Instead of, say preparing specific dishes that correspond to each participant (mean a lot to them), because it would be impossible to replicate their flavours, I would make something that means a lot to me, illustrating the bond between the dish and I, in order to let others understand and respond in a same way. Sharo recommended that I need to pay super close attention to the ambiance, maybe restrict the attire or pick a place outside of the kitchen. 

I asked about the design of the book, and I wasn't sure to go with a series of concertina or one big bound book. If it's a long book, people might just flip through it and I wouldn't want that; instead a series of concertina split into chapters and all inside a box makes it more appealing. It would also be nice if the concertina could stretch out so a few people could read it at the same time.

As we did our crit right after dinner, I think some of us might have gotten food coma and it wasn't very effective. Also instead of the kitchen we should have gone to a more conducive environment, maybe the common room. I did like the diversity of the group, and honestly I prefer a mix of people instead of purely 2D, visual people. 

While researching, I thought that this definition of ritual works quite well, "Ritual naturalizes what are ultimately arbitrary forms of life, but in order to do this effectively the constructed and coercive nature of ritual must remain concealed from view" (Sharf). In other words, a ritual bring specific elements of regular life into the spotlight to show something; it could be to remember an event, to celebrate something periodically or to ask for the favour of the gods. I thought then, I can ritualise what happens in the household when my mum makes beef noodle soup, as it really isn't the soup that I miss but the company. I will give roles to my participants so they mimic my family, and they act like them and do the actions leading up to the meal. I was hoping that by allowing them to reenact my family time back home, they can remember theirs too, and during the ritual they have stuff to share. 

Timetable:

Not going to lie, I only started working with the project in mind in early April, and now I am starting to feel the crunch I actually start to work efficiently. Today is the 3^rd, and I think I can produce a solid prototype by Monday. The only problem I can think of is finding time to write reflections, and maybe completing my project proposal. 

Pre-ritual planning:

Today (5/04), I started the first segment of the documentation process-- making the work the work itself. I forgot to limit all my shots to just portrait, so I had to retake some. I especially wanted to document the journey of the beef, from being raw into the stage right before somebody eats it. From my previous shots, it sounds stupid but, I need to make the composition more interesting. The easy way, I feel is just go super close to the subject and snap, which is cool, but just not all the time because the soup just fogs up the lens.

This made me realise the many purposes of a camera, and how to use it, like should I use it simply as an extension of my arm? Or a tool I always need to make it's properly calibrated before taking the shot? Whatever the decision I need it to stay constant. 

Post Ritual thoughts:

Well we actually had a rehearsal, because the participants were a bit surprised and were uneasy that they had to perform something. The performance went well, we did everything according to the script, but similar to the outcome of the commune project, I neglected how the event affects the participants.

What I didn't factor into this ritual:

• Other than the fact that they don't call London home, I needed if they actually call themselves nomad. Sounds super obvious, but not all considered themselves to be a nomad.
  • This made me think, what happens if somebody disagrees being labelled as a nomad? If I were to present this ritual without mentioning the modern-day nomad, I could have dodged a potential minefield, then again it's not like I am announcing everybody in my group is a nomad either.
• That yes the design of the ritual I think achieves what I want, if only I didn't "demystify" exactly what I wanted
  • After talking to one of the participants, I realised yes, it was difficult to be mentally inside the ritual, inside the world I was making
  • The script creates a setting, and since I modelled it after a screenplay, I think I could have made the world more "realistic" by altering the kitchen. I could take it in both ways, to either make it more similar to the world I have in mind, or make it less so, like studio lights placed like a sit-com manner.
  • I should have not explicitly stated that I constructed this ritual so I can hear stories about them, because that is in the words of one of my participants, too "goal-orientated" and makes it artificial.

Did I not get what I want? No, I got materials related to my question, but at the end only to realise that this approach isn't the best way, and when working something that involves gathering information from others, it is best to construct a space and let the conversation go, instead of directing it.

This made me think, the artists whom I have studied who use food as a mediator between conversations, or works that revolve around people coming together succeed not because they wasn't expecting anything, or an answer to their queries. 

I did not anticipate the volatility of this conversation, I felt it could go off into another direction so I felt I needed to explain the context to them, through this process I altered their stories; By explaining the context to them, I applied a filter to them, and changed the stories I could have gotten.

Publication Design + Presentation:

Now I will focus on the presentation of the book, and the eventual layout of the presentation. I made two zines, concertina style glued to a dust jacket that also serves a hard cover, 360 gsm and the interior are either 300 or 200 gsm, and gotten feedback on them. Design-wise, thinner paper inside the covers gives it a more precious feel, because the reader will need to be delicate to not tear it apart. I could try pasting tracing paper on the inside to provide texture, or even to the paper inside to give that lifty feeling. 

I also realised that the 9x A4 papers sized poster (A1) does not make my 35mm scans too blurry, so I can make a poster out of it basically.

Todo:

 Listen to the audio recordings, watch the videos and gather information for the book. Come up with content, then shoot the remainder of the film before developing the last roll. 

Design something to contain the zines and proposal  

Today's crit helped me visualise my final outcome's presentation; instead of creating works that only existing in the studio, I need to stick with the piece's original intention, figure how to develop from there, almost like its natural habitat.

I'm having problems designing the zine's layout, I'm not sure to start with the dimensions, or how the pictures should look beside the text. Basically all the problems are all intertwined and cannot start without affecting the other. Then I realised this work is essentially a journey, one figuring what it means to feel belonged, so with that I looked for zine designs with a strong narrative element--concertina. 

I got feedback for the zines, and the common bit is that they got a feeling of  journey and collection, so my three publications work together and the chapter layout is strong. The box wasn't needed to unify the zines also.

Publication thoughts/explanation:

My method through this outcome was ritualising the “mundane” to bring out for me what it means to feel belonged. Things like family meals, gathering with friends, or just any activities that are inherently important to us aside from food for belly, but also our social self, and yet they are dreams because they are forgotten so fast. So I re-enacted a family meal with participants whose roots home are also overseas, to try to explain what it feels like to be belonged.

After Michelle’s crit:

I will need to take a series of photos to illustrate how my lectern will look in its place. To truly represent the communal activity of eating, I will not place it outside restaurants like I originally planned to, instead places that people gather and eat.

Conclusion for this project

Taste and ambiance are secondary, to a certain extent who also. It’s those familiar bonds you remember back at home, the feeling that across the table everybody and everything is good. To feel belonged is to feel protected, and I can trust everybody on this table. It’s this fundamental relationship that was first brought to me by my family, others might be different. And I feel this journey is something everybody should take to find what it feels for them to feel belonged.

Now at the end of this project, I can't remember why I found this direction interesting; I got lost in the middle of this project, and just like always I never focused on anything. This last project had a lot of time for researching and I amassed a lot of information, which looking back now, I should have developed a direction, came up with a message or a perspective on all of it. 

I found that I was on this food journey all because I tossed in my other interests with "art", and originally I had another more "arty" idea but ultimately decided to go with baking bread, and from there it all led to food and rituals. I realised I need to put in more effort in finding out what I enjoy doing, and blending it classwork to push briefs in my direction; I mean it sounds obvious but it's hard realising what specially I enjoy to do then tie it in with school projects. 

The research I did on this project were largely theoretical, and I think it was a bit too much. I should have been researching more about designers or just any artists who produce zines or just work visually, because I struggled to translate all the information I got from my ritual into a coherent message. 

For all future projects:

• Realise a direction, start with something that I'm curious about or always wondering, then don't just gather information forever, I've gotta stop somewhere
• Don't reject any idea that seems too "non-arty"
• Actually look into designers and artists who product something tangible, rather than solely focusing on artists who perform (because it's not their intention to make any publications, in this case)

I printed it out, and woah it was all wrong. It was wrong because I messed up in Indesign, but I think I know why I didn't "care" anymore--because I was frustrated at how the outcome didn't meet my expectations, so I kind of just brushed this last project off. 

I was proud that I carried on experimenting with creating sociable places from Commune, and in a way, harnessing the information collected from those constructed places to turn it into something meaningful to me; I'm not usually very outspoken, so dealing with people is difficult for me and this last stretch definitely helped me face this problem head-on. From Bartering for instance, I actually started not just talking to strangers, but also asking them to divulge some pretty personal information. People are like onions, and everybody has different amount of layers to peel, to get to the juicy and fragrant inner core that sautés well.

I originally planned to take photos of the stand in places other than the dorm, but again I was rushing and stuck with two kitchens where I lived. If I had planned my project earlier, I could have included outdoor spaces and places that are usually not meant for eating (but I still ate there anyway), but to be honest I would just toss this project away because I feel I have exhausted its potential. This is one of the rare cases where there wouldn't be any difference between if I had more time or not, because I have achieved my goal I set for myself, and I just want to move onto something new. 

When I finish all that's required for Tuesday and if I have time, I will fix the Indesign doc so it can print on A3 paper, then maybe I can at least have something I'm not ashamed of showing.