Curated Dinner

To celebrate the World Oceans Day, a collective of curators from the MA Curating Contemporary Design course at Kingston University (in partnership with The Design Museum), staged a speculative performance at Stanley Picker Gallery. The dinner took place in a dystopian future, where plastic has caused detrimental environmental degradation. Set in the year 2050, when there will be more plastic than fish in the sea, this conceptual performance represented the curators’ reactions to this concerning foresight. The objective was to create a participatory experience, where the guests become an integral part of the performance. Visual and auditory stimuli created an unexpected undertone to this experimental event to provoke reactions and discussion. It is only through the guests’ contribution that the performance is possible. Completely immersed in the reality of the year 2050, the visitors left with a transformative experience. The Curated Dinner was restaged during London Design Festival 2017 in partnership with the British Council as part of "Design Connections", their annual programme connecting people in the design industry to network, learn and share. A revisitation of the Curated Dinner was staged at the Çeşme Hamamı during the 4th Istanbul Biennale. Exploring the question: Can design education be....speculative?, the experience was part of "Tables. The School of Expanded Formats", a project curated by Jana Scholze exploring unidentified spaces as sides of learning and exclusivity as a format to stimulate action.