On Monday, November 24, 2014, Paige Landesberg, Laura Campuzano and Erica Moran will be creating a performance for Trevor Martin’s Social Practice class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As the basis of the performance, the three are hosting a shared meal for about thirty people in a private home. They have asked seven women from the Environmental Illness (EI) community to share their particular dietary restrictions and tendencies, and will be creating a dish that follows these guidelines as a way of embracing each of the women’s personal relationship with food since becoming environmentally ill. Sharing the very specialized dishes with the public is a way of reflecting on and creating empathy between the EI community’s lifestyles and their own, while spreading awareness of the issue of environmental illness to the broader community.

Since the meal occurs right before Thanksgiving, the team has been thinking about themes of meal sharing and would like to invite you to join in sharing this meal with us at 6:30pm CST on November 24th from whatever location you are at with whatever food is safe for you. The guests coming to the Chicago event are, also, invited to bring their own meals that represent their personal experiences with food, and will be asked to participate in writing a response during the meal. Lastly, Paige, Laura and Erica will be creating some form of book or document to archive all of the recipes, stories, and photos or whatever else remains from the meal. Any and all participation would be warmly welcomed and appreciated!

The idea came about during Trevor Martin’s Social Practice performance class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The desire behind the project is to create a performance art piece in an effort to bring the students and the EI community together in some way. The students are learning about socially engaged art-making and working with a variety of artists including, Julie Laffin, an EI who spends summers in the Snowflake, AZ EI community.

read about the other performance pieces:
Part 1 Community Tea Party
Part 2 Unifying Walk

photos: © Liz Housewright