A collection of musings on artistic hospitality

The Threshold

 

[Sunday 20th May 2018]

 

“For there to be hospitality there must be a door. But if there is a door, there is no longer hospitality… As soon as there is a door and windows it means that someone has a key to them and consequently controls the conditions of hospitality. There must be a threshold… It is (therefore) necessary to be the impossible. If there is hospitality the impossible must be done.” [Jaques Derrida]

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“Hospitality requires a host who has power over a guest, but this control is the opposite of hospitality and contains within it an aggression against the visitor. [Jacques Derrida] also brings up a new metaphor, that of the door, and suggests that it is the location where hospitality might be judged to take place in the world. The door is a line built with the purpose of making an entrance. - a place to secure as much as to welcome. The way out of the paradox is to become an unexpected visitor, an intruder who is not repulsed but accepted unconditionally. Such an act would, of course, demand that the potential host becomes a non-host and occupies the same position as the guest, at which point, hospitality performs the impossible or self-destructs. To construct real hospitality in three dimensions is to behave wilfully, as though it is possible to become impossible. 

 

What is needed in the exhibition is an artist act that escapes its moorings as object or materialised emotion and enters into a fragile relationship with those others who choose to enter into the work and thus refuse to be only guests.” [Charles Esche - on Jaques Derrida]

 

 

I agree with Derrida that ‘as soon as there is a door and windows it means that someone has a key to them and consequently controls the conditions of hospitality’. However I think that he falls short of understanding the beauty of a generous heart having this control. It gives the opportunity to love. It allows us to make the human choice to be generous and vulnerable - to open our homes and our lives to others. As an xenos (the Greek word means both host and guest) welcomes another xenos into a mutual space. This space is sometimes their own home, sometimes a public place, sometimes the other person’s space. Yes these spaces are charged with history and the doors we use to access them sometimes feel unwelcoming. But it is our choice to enter in to these often messy human relationships and to navigate and grow human connection. Hospitality, I believe, is about the willingness to open up (every aspect of) our lives to other people. To be vulnerable and willing to be hurt and let down because connection is messy. But I believe hospitality is not, as Derrida states, impossible because Jesus opened up relationship and allowed us to be able to love generously. I don't think control automatically equates aggression and hostility. I spent 3 months in Charleston, South Carolina, with a community who had an open door policy. I was welcome to just go into their homes and make myself at home (like an unexpected but at the same time always welcome visitor). This showed unconditional acceptance to me. I found it hard as the polite closed nature of a Brit is inset within me, but I think it is a beautiful way of living and I hope to be more like this. In that sense there is control but it involves a generous welcoming and a lot of bravery. Yes London is a very different culture with the obvious issue of travelling time - but a bit of spontaneity in order to deepen human relationships and create connection is a rather beautiful thing I think. I say this now but I did find it very hard when I lived in London! And I still find it hard now! The fear of intruding into people’s homes and lives rages through my mind all the time. 

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This kind of open living is so radically against the grain of our culture that, as a friend pointed out, it can lead to being taken advantage of. But it is worth remembering that we take advantage of Christ every day when we turn away from all that He has done for us - and yet His unconditional love accepts us and welcomes us back into His presence if we enter past the open threshold.

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The home, dwelling, Dad and the family

 

[Tuesday 10th April 2018]

 

What does it mean to seek refuge? What does it mean to call somewhere home?

 

I believe that God came to make a home with us so that we can have an eternal home with him. Home is to do with both people and place. And God desires his people to be with him in his home. To have a relationship with him and to abide with him. But people often don’t want to abide with God. In the biblical story of the Prodigal Son the younger son decided he didn’t want to live with his Father anymore and left home in search of a better life. He broke his relationship with his Dad because of his lust for independence. But when he had spent all his money, begun to be in need and returned home his Father welcomed him back with open arms. This is a picture of God’s welcome home.

 

God himself truly desired a relationship with people so he came to abide with them. He came to woo his people back home. And now God welcomes people into his abode. He stands at the door, with arms wide open beckoning people into the inviting warmth of his house. He beckons people to step over the threshold and to abide, not just as a sojourner, but as part of his family forever. He invites people home into His eternal refuge.

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A humble down-to-earth way of entertaining 

 

[Monday 26th June 2017]

 

Sat in the cosy calmness of the buzzing Topping and Company Booksellers cookbook quarter, my eyes were overwhelmed with the feast piled before me; brimming from floor to sealing with different colours, flavours, textures, smells. I had made myself at home at the sprawling central table, made myself look as settled as possible to attract the sweet words ‘can I bring you some tea’ and cracked out my poor choice of lunch (a scone oozing with butter and sticky strawberry jam every time I tried to sneak a bite), trying not to transfer any sticky fingerprints on the crisp book pages. This is the place I would come to get away from the bustling outside and delve into the possibilities of cooking. This is where I pondered what it would look like to incorporate food into my art practice. This is where I questioned how far my artistic practice should stretch into different aspects of my life. 

 

Earl Grey warming my Polish china, I sat facing the recent winner of The Great British Bake Off, Flora Shedden. I have been an avid fan of the program since it was birthed in August 2010 and thoroughly enjoy witnessing incredible engineering feats and taste sensations. But it wasn't Flora’s baking skills (and a plethora she possessed) that enamoured me. It was her philosophy of food as an excuse to gather people.  A place where you could sit, socialise and share stories. Flora was so down to earth and speaking of the tension I felt behind ‘hosting’. She spoke of “a gathering as an easy way of cooking and hosting, where there is no pressure, no code of conduct, and everyone - cook included - can actually enjoy themselves.” Dinner brings images of exhausting and highly involved formalities. A gathering is the opposite. But how can I develop this idea of unpretentious hospitality? Nathan Williams,  the editor in chief and executive creative director of Kinfolk magazine, walked in after overhearing Flora’s musings to join our discussion on the process of creating these humble gatherings.  

 

Home cooking and entertaining are name badges that make us think serious, stodgy, formal and frilly. There is no sense of relaxing with friends, when the hours pass effortlessly, conversation flows naturally, cooking is participatory, and the evening ends with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Simple cooking, eating and talking: both natural and accessible. What if we peel off the fluff and commercial layers that complicate entertaining? Then, put the social reasons for inviting friends into our homes - the relationships, traditions, community, and conversations - in the foreground and let the superficial details like fancy recipes and table decorations recede into the background. These are the reasons that we gather: they should shape our traditions and inform the rituals that cement a family. 

 

I recall a time whilst working with students in London where a first year invited me round her home for dinner. It was already 7pm and I was starting to flag from hunger as I arrived at her front door. But what welcomed me was a smiling face and a kitchen side full of fresh ingredients. My heart fell into my shoes as I asked for a cup of tea (to keep me going) and we began to prepare the meal together whilst listening to a new playlist of tranquil melodies. Two hours later, 9pm, after concocting a kale and butternut squash lasagna with homemade white sauce and a fresh garden salad we sat down at her kitchen table to dig into our hard work. I remember feeling so proud of our accomplishment and so excited to taste our creation. It was in this moment when I discovered that a meal can be much more fulfilling when its preparation involves the friends who plan to sit down at the table. I enjoyed helping out and my personal investment in creating this meal together added to the enjoyment of eating it all the more.

 

There is a deep simplicity in embodying a balanced, intentional way of living and a genuine appreciation of food and hosting friends in our homes. There’s something to be said for slowing down, sitting back, and breathing deeply. The way we entertain looks different for us all but as Nathan commented “as long as we’re cooking and inviting people into our homes with a genuine interest in sharing experiences, conversing, and eating together, then the way we do these things becomes insignificant and ultimately comes naturally. “ I am therefore seeking to promote the deeper purpose of gathering: to build communities around ourselves. This is a humble down-to-earth way of entertaining that emphasises nothing more than togetherness. It is out of this that we can develop our own unique sense of communality.

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Key texts that inspired my work

 

Culinary elitism, like artistic elitism, can discourage friendly interactions among strangers. Offering a humble, homemade meal, on the other hand, is universally understood as a hospitable gesture.

[Linda Weintraub - Making Contemporary Art]

 

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A humble down-to-earth way of entertaining that emphasises nothing more than togetherness. 

[Kinfolk Table, The: Recipes for Small Gatherings - Nathan Williams]

 

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The acts of art-making and cooking align in many ways; both reactive and creative, they mimic and accommodate each other. Yet again, there are interconnections between food, art making and daily life. 

 

The studio is a space of communication and community. The kitchen is where we come together, with our different stories, to share nourishment. Lunchtime means encounters. Visitors spend time with us, enter into dialogue, join us, and inspire us in the translation process that is cooking. 

 

Cooking is caring for others; it is a gesture of generosity and hospitality that functions as social glue; it amplifies social relations and translates thoughts into food, into giving and sharing.

[Studio Olafur Eliasson: The Kitchen]

 

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What an artist produces, first and foremost, is relations between people and the world, by way of aesthetic objects. 

[Bourriaud, N. (2002) Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les presses du réel]

 

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One of the ways I have tried to negotiate the different sets of values that crowd around our table is to think of eating together as an adventure.

[Conspire: Food, Feast & Table]

 

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How might cultural institutions enact hospitality as a creative, ethically grounded, meaningful activity? Might it be necessary to say “No” to some guests, in order to more effectively say “Yes” to others?

[Smith, S. (2013) Feast Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art. Chicago: Smart Museum of Art]

 

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People slowly learn in their daily lives that good food is not to be taken lightly. For me it is a high pleasure to be invited to a dinner prepared in someone’s home. Hospitality is the natural accompaniment of good food. Good people make good food. 

[Alison Knowles]

 

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I became interested in meals as large-scale organising through art, and in the interaction between people as a form of aesthetic gesture. Food united people, and since I was from a very early stage interested in cultural and social difference, meals provided a way to bring lots of people “to the table,” metaphorically speaking. 

[Suzanne Lacy]

 

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It is life that is valuable; an art devoid of process and transformation is a dead art. 

[Daniel Spoerri]

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The Dining Project bridges personal and institutional forms of hospitality. Lee is a guest in each institution that presents TDP. He is simultanesmult the host of each meal, responsible for helping the guests feel welcome even within the cool spaces of museums - places that generally inspire behaviour and etiquette quite different from that which occurs within the intimate private space of a home (or even an artist’s studio). 

[Lee Minwei]

 

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Setting of the table is important. 

[Mildred’s Lane]

 

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The meal as a site of political negotiation and cultural exchange. 

[Julio Cesar Morales]

 

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Hospitableness is using cultural resonance to form an entry point, an environment, or a relationship. 

[The National Bitter Melon Council]

 

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For me the meal can be considered a production of consumable objects that allows for a conversation. The conversation might be produced in the preparation of the meal among collaborators in the kitchen, and it might be produced around the table. I is therefore not surprising to me that artists invested in situational or relational practices keep returning to the meal or gastronomy as a way to produce the kind of conversations or relationships the socially engaged work often seeks to produce. 

[Michael Rakowitz]

 

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Hospitality signifies the claim of a stranger entering foreign territory to be treated by its owner without hostility.

[Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay, trans. Mary Campbell Smith (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1972), 137.]

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Hospitality is not only a matter of individual decision, it is a matter of community and relations within community. 

[Irina Aristarkhova]

 

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Can taste operate aesthetically with no personal desire or appetite needing to be satisfied to arouse pleasure? Objects of taste are perishable. The table produces only temporary achievements, quickly consumed, in comparison to the museum and gallery where artworks can hang for centuries, or to the concert hall where masterworks can be performed repeatedly. Moreover, in appreciating food one causes it to disappear. We can live without art, but food has instrumental value that has little to do with its aesthetic merits, since nutrition is needed to sustain a living organism.

 

Is the tongue an organ for aesthetic discernment? Art is not constrained by beauty. Therefore, what can the dining table produce that bears the equivalent weight of the most profound works of art? The palate does not tolerate equivalent values. Even symbolic tastes (bitter) cannot poison. Unlike the objects of the eye and the ear, objects of taste, smell and touch can sicken poison and kill. Is taste essentially an exercise of a sense that delivers some pleasures and affords conviviality, but remains relatively free form profound meaning or content?

 

Because food is fresh, appearing and edible for only a short time, eating lends itself to a sort of natural symbolism that includes signs of corporeality, decay and mortality - aspects of life that one might prefer not to think about. 

[Carolyn Korsmeyer]