Food for Thought: Thought for Change
Athens, 16-21.05. Kotzia Square, 1–2:30 pm and 3–4:30 pm
Under colorful canopies inspired by the shamiana (a traditional Pakistani wedding tent), Araeen Rasheed invites people to sit together and enjoy a meal based on recipes from around the Mediterranean, which have been cooked in collaboration with Organization Earth....The description of the project is inclusive and according to invigilators, everyone is able to participate (so long as they are not being hateful). Actually I should say that anyone is able to participate, so long as you are one of the first 100 to get tickets. The tickets are free but already that sets up an invisible barrier to the project; if someone cannot speak English or Greek then it is likely that they will assume that the tickets cost something or may just be inhibited based on the language barrier. Personally, I was sitting at a table with three Syrian refugees who did not speak English or Greek but only Arabic. Also at the table was one Kurdish man from the Ararat mountains in Turkey, one Greek man, and one Polish girl. The other tables seemed to mostly have middle class families as well as some older couples (mostly non-Greek, tourists, if I had to guess). We sat together under the custom, professionally made, expensive structure of the "tents" which were loosely encircled by security attendants. Water was brought to our table, then bread, followed by the main dish and after everyone had finished there was a sweet, cinnamon bread for dessert. The main dish was yellow rice, roasted pork, salad and tzatziki which was reasonably good. The food itself presented another barrier to the project, excluding half of our table from sharing the same meal as the pork could not be eaten by the three Syrians because of their religion and the one vegetarian, instead they were given everything else but no substitute for the pork. Thous I am personally not a vegetarian I had (wrongly) assumed that the food would be vegetarian for ease and inclusivity. The meal was nice enough with some small talk between the strangers in as much as we could communicate. I tried to ask everyone how they knew about the project that we all were participating in; The Greek man was friends with another man who was working there, the Syrians knew nothing of Documenta14 but instead thought it was a government subsidized program, Two of us knew about the Documenta14 program and unfortunately I did not find out how the Kurdish man knew about it but also seemed aware of Documenta as well as being well traveled so I suppose he was visiting some of the other events/exhibitions. Overall it was a nice experience which provided the opportunity to sit with strangers for a meal but, like other Documenta14 programming, it seems to me that the outcome of this project was more focused on the appearance of making a political act rather than actually achieving results or achieving the best results possible.
The project itself presented a slew of positive and negative attributes: locked bathrooms, a perimeter of security guards, menu choices, language issues and a ticket kiosk all present invisible barriers to accessing the work for potential participants. The staff presenting the work were helpful and friendly, as far as I could tell. The actual structure that contained the work was way over built and that money could have been distributed in a more effective fashion. If coming alone or with one other person, it was so that you would sit and eat with a bunch of strangers, possibly from different backgrounds which was initially awkward, sometimes confusing, but overall nice while being at the same time too simple, trite and wasteful.
The project itself presented a slew of positive and negative attributes: locked bathrooms, a perimeter of security guards, menu choices, language issues and a ticket kiosk all present invisible barriers to accessing the work for potential participants. The staff presenting the work were helpful and friendly, as far as I could tell. The actual structure that contained the work was way over built and that money could have been distributed in a more effective fashion. If coming alone or with one other person, it was so that you would sit and eat with a bunch of strangers, possibly from different backgrounds which was initially awkward, sometimes confusing, but overall nice while being at the same time too simple, trite and wasteful.
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| Rasheed Araeen's Shamiyaana project was supported by the British Council |
