This participatory dinner performance by artist Rahel Zoller invites guests to collaboratively design a new kind of table, one that resists the hierarchy of rectangles and the diplomacy of the round. Rather than imposing a fixed shape, the table begins as a blank, flat surface of wood, rectangular in form.
Upon arrival, each participant is invited to draw a contour line on the surface, a gesture, a curve, a cut, that defines their ideal proximity to others. Where would you like to sit in relation to another person? Shoulder to shoulder? Diagonally across? Close enough to whisper, or distant enough to observe? How much space do you need to feel at ease, to feel seen or to remain unseen?
After all the drawings are made, the group discusses the lines and makes a collaborative decision about the final shape. These lines are then cut, forming a new collective table for seven, a sculptural surface shaped through negotiation, intuition and shared intention.
At the end a meal is shared around this newly formed table.
- People Rahel Zoller