around the table
For this project I found inspiration in a tradition I had with some friends during my BA studies. We all came from different countries and one of the ways we introduced each other to our cultures was through food. We started doing potluck dinners where each of us would bring one dish to share. In general, eating together and sharing food brought us together and is still a big part of our friendship. I decided to focus on the social aspect of food and eating. How do we use food to build and strengthen our communities? We need to eat in order to survive but food and eating have a much larger social impact.
My focus for this project was on the differences of when we eat together vs when we eat alone and with this video I wanted to show the difference in movement that happens when we eat by ourselves and when we eat with others. In order to do so I hosted a dinner for some friends and recorded our interactions. Before we started to eat I traced every element on the table and then while we were eating I periodically traced all the elements. I then filmed myself having lunch alone and did the same thing and traced the movement. Eating alone took significantly less time – about 9 minutes, while the group dinner took about 50 minutes.
solo dinner
group dinner
In the video the dinner I had by myself is played at real time while the group dinner is sped up so they end at the same time. The video switches back and forth between the two dinners and in doing so it further emphasises the social interactions that happen when we eat with others and the calmness of eating alone.