Welcome to Dinner Club

Domesticity and Care

The domesticity of the works creates an openness, the acts of sharing, cooking and eating together become tools for subversion. Here care is the politics. The slow and intentional process of making alongside the communal cooking requires attention to detail, through the combination of these two practices, labour and love are embedded in the fabric of the whole project. Each stitch, like each ingredient brought by someone, holds a memory. The textiles hold the memories of conversations and meals we have shared, their stains of previous dinner clubs carry a familiarity and utility, their repeated use brings a new value. They are carriers of the ephemeral beauty of a social gathering extending their joy beyond one single occasion.

Adaptability is central; with the works becoming art pieces, invites, tablecloths, place mats, cushions, recipes… their function determined by the individuals present at each dinner club, each meal becoming a new composition shaped by those attending. The works act as both the scenographic elements and participant to the dinner club shaping the sensory landscape of each shared meal and gathering; honouring craft and collective nourishment. With a discontent felt about the world we live in the work also acts as a space for critical conversation: about food waste, food poverty, loneliness, animal welfare, and the hidden structures of the food industry... The space created insists on tenderness, play and connection as radical acts in themselves. In that way the dinners and works are a kind of resistance - not through confrontation but through care. It is a quiet and loud at the same time. This, is a dream worth romanticising: one where joy and care are of much greater significance than the relentless pursuit of economic success, productivity and material gain.