Online Supper, developed by Marsha Bradfield (Year Three Leader of Drawing, Camberwell College of Arts), uses the custom of dining together to discuss taste, language and critique. Students participating are encouraged to consider their choice of meals - flavours, textures, the associations one may have with a particular food, applying the sensory elements of their supper to their studio practice and that of their peers. Bradfield writes in her invitation to students: ‘Food and drink offer flavourful language. We already use expressions like, ‘half-baked’, ‘meaty’, ‘stale’, ‘cherry-picking’, ‘piece of cake’, ‘SWEET!’. The buffet of options is endless and there are brilliant examples in other languages.’. Bradfield goes on to ask how we can use these articulations to replace less critical departures: ‘I like this..., I don’t like that...’ or ‘That’s interesting…’. Smell and taste are often less favoured in the sensory hierarchy, however in this context become a tool to examine and embellish our existing visual vocabularies. 

 

Parallel to this, the activity incites an alternative meaning of taste. Coming to the completion of their BA, students are asked to consider the images used to represent their work online and how this might aline with existing notions of 'art-world taste'. Liam Gillick’s 'Factories in the Snow' talk at Frieze (2007), Ben Highmore’s lecture given as part of Chelsea College of Arts's symposium, Taste After Bourdieu and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s 'Metaphors We Live By' provide starting points for conversation. 

 

The initial sessions of Online Supper will take place Thursday 7 May.