In the infinite chain of things
performative meal
with laquer artist Flore Falcinelli, and chef Masahiro Tainaka
2021
in Villa Kujoyama, JP
Photo/video Daisuke Taskashige
performative meal
with laquer artist Flore Falcinelli, and chef Masahiro Tainaka
2021
in Villa Kujoyama, JP
Photo/video Daisuke Taskashige
“We will do
our best to point out that the meteorological, geographical and temporal elements express the poetry of a Place
and that as such, like those who cook, those who eat,
and those who will be eaten, they participate actively in the elaboration of the meal and its narration. It is in
this dynamic of deconstruction and deployment that we
implement the form of meal that we qualify as « antropo-decentered».
Read here the manifesto
Seeking to decentralize the human in the experience of the meal, we’ve invited objects and guests to mimic and ingest the metamorphosis of the landscape and especially that early winter day, the descent of sap. In the infinite chain of thing is a manifest meal elaborated in and on the ground of a garden, which expands the meal in time and in space to the non-human living, and to autonomous animated artifacts.
Japanese lacquer is made from the sap of the Urushi tree of the Sumac family. We have unfolded the process of laquering on a series of 84 objects, and buried them a month before the meal to let the garden take care of them, inviting soil, insects, bacteria and plants to impact the material. The eater-gardener digs for artifacts during the meal, stirring the soil. Chestnuts, tempura of Gingko leaves, and maple leaves, licking cocoa on a Linden branch, mushrooms, raw and roasted roots... The menu, following the rhythm of extraction of the soil, spun the movemen of the sap's descent during a tasting going from fruits to roots.
