First Supper

Venice, Italy
2019 
with Mircea Eni and Yuki Takeshima














Deep and inherent contradictions in human nature and cultures are encountered at the dinner table. In Japan one eats with the bowl raised because lowering your head towards a bowl is animalistic, while in Korea one eats rice with a spoon because raising a bowl means you cannot afford a table. Rigid societal, cultural, and traditional differences often cause separation or isolation. But these subtle differences that otherwise divide along subjective societal-cultural lines are erased, or celebrated, in the moment that one sits with another (or many) for a meal.

The table is a moment of reckoning and dialogue — a place upon which wars are concluded, civilizations form or move forward, and we meet our spouse’s parents.

We propose a grand meal as architectural ceremony around an endless table constructed of many idiosyncratic tables to to begin the Biennale and initiate a day of exchange and action beyond borders. The framework of this meal is a conglomeration of authentic tables collected from surrounding areas, painted as one uniform color and specifically arranged amongst the Spanish, Belgian, and Dutch pavilions to create a visually and culturally endless First Supper for the greater event of the Freespace Biennale.



























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