Free Food, Brick Lane Pt.1 + Farmer, Simon and Gurksy
Initial spot, Allen Gardens, Brick Lane
Later moved to Truman Brewery along Brick Lane, and still nobody brave enough to eat our bread and drink our tea.
"The first work for the charity by VCCP will invite real families to spend time in a large Perspex box on London’s South Bank, where the public can observe them sharing everyday joys of family life such as playing games, eating a takeaway and watching TV…The campaign comes ahead of the 16 March vote in Parliament on the Refugee Family Reunion Bill. "
Refugees are humans too, and Amnesty International places a real family in a vitrine for us to go, “hey look it’s a family doing some family things”. What makes this campaign effective is actually kind of cool because it’s the ignorance of its performers in it sends the message, that family time should be undisturbed, no matter “the mundane bits of” it. This reminds me of the early days of cinematography when films were made to dazzle with the audience in mind, when film was a novel new way of wowing people. Whereas now most people go to the cinema to see a story unravel before their eyes, with the actors carrying out their ‘lives’ on the screen.
The interaction can be considered passive, or actually not at all, but I feel whenever somebody real is performing live in front of me, it has to be an interaction piece! Maybe because you know, we are all social animals, but it’s a type of work that I feel I can directly alter the nature of it.
Doing mundane things in places where they shouldn’t be in is kind of like…speculative design (oh no not again), in a way because it doesn’t show the speculative or probable future, but what’s happening now and saying it could all be gone on March 16th.
Advertiser: Amnesty Intl
Agency: VCCP
Geoffrey Farmer:
Yup ok, scale is magnificent and good, but let’s talk about the process. Farmer wanted to be “to be transformed by the experience” while making this piece. He wanted to use “chronology as a composition” and he cutting up 900 LIFE magazines from ’35 to ’85 was pretty tough, so he employed the help of 90 people.
According to Farmer:
We had quotas to keep. We worked in shifts. There was a small group of us who, in the end, I think, were working 20-hour days. I was amazed at the generosity of everyone working on the piece. It was a communal experience. A lot of conversation happens when you are sitting together working around a table. If someone didn’t agree with the image selection or strongly felt an image should be included, they would hold the image up for a vote. We had meals together, a fantastic cook and friend came in to make lunches and dinners. I wasn’t expecting the piece to grow in the way that it did.
The outcome does not reflect the meals or conversations that Farmer had with his volunteers, but it made me think, should it be though? Coming from Farmer himself, this piece is about “factory life…Factory farming, the war factory…History emerging out of a factory. In the end, it takes on the appearance of a conveyor belt.” It sounds boring to me, but now that he made it with the help of others, and during that process probably lots of arguments about the direction of the work happened, and I am drawn more to that. The scale of the piece only makes me more curious.
Taryn Simon:
Paperwork and the Will of Capital, 2015
“The photographs and sculptures of Paperwork and the Will of Capital had twin points of departure: archival photographs of official signings; and George Sinclair’s nineteenth century horticultural study containing dried grass specimens, an experiment in survival and evolution cited by Charles Darwin in his groundbreaking research”.
A Polite Fiction, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2014
I like Simon’s inspiration from botany drawings, because despite their educational purpose, the scientists developed a method of representing their studies—a huge picture of a plant with a few words on the side. There is a chronological progression in all these works and I think the small body of text coupled with its equally small pictures aids in progression; a small picture is like a still from a zoopraxiscope.
My outcome will be a mix of photo and text, and as a ritual procedure is important, and I’m wondering what happens if I produce a book with the pictures and text cropped at the edges, creating a sense of confusion?
Andreas Gurksy Exihibition
May Day IV 2000
Digitally recreated of a rave in Germany, Gursky pieced all the photos so that everybody is in focus, and makes this a portrait. In a similar way, 99 Cent, 1999, presents a digitally manipulated and overwhelming image.
I am not feeling the scale that others are, instead I started looking at the borders of the pieces and the people looking at the works.
For this piece, the people were pretty animated and super into dissecting this piece. I thought this was the most memorable segment of my trip; seeing people react to the photos and hearing what they said about it.
I left Gursky feeling a bit disappointed, because I did not feel the overwhelming powers that I was "supposed" to feel. Maybe because I went inside with the idea that I have to feel a certain way, but I didn't feel it. It also made pay attention to the structure of the shots, especially the one when the people scattered on the hills were like stars in a constellation, reminds me of photographers who construct entire scenes before taking a photograph.
In the end, I left with thoughts about frames and was more interested in the gallery goers.
Cookbook for Friends Pt.1
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.
This Week's Plan (LOOK AT MEEEEE)
Perry Talk Thoughts
-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
-Enemies suck, adversaries are better
Gursky Thoughts Pt.2
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.
Free Food Pt.2 @ KX (Bartering)
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.
Day of Ritual 170318
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.