The meal
Do you like food and photography enough to be up at 1am on Saturday snacking and snapping?
An upcoming project by Art House Co-op, which aims to inspire feelings of community across geographical and cultural boundaries, may remind you of Life in a Day (2011), the documentary directed by Kevin Macdonald and shot by filmmakers all over the world about what it was like to be alive on July 24, 2010.
The independent Brooklyn-based company known for its global collaborative art projects has initiated one called The Meal. It asks individuals around the world to sit down to eat in unison on February 24 at 12pm US Eastern Standard Time (Saturday, 1am Hong Kong time) and capture photographic evidence of the meal. The shots should be posted by March 5 in hard copy form to the Art House Co-op at the Brooklyn Art Library.
While the Life in a Day project received 4,500 hours of video from 192 countries, Art House Co-op is excited about its project and is anticipating contributions from as many individuals from as many countries as possible. 'We're going to exhibit the photos online and in the Brooklyn Archives, our storefront exhibition space. We're sure people will connect with the project - it's an interesting mix of documentary, social experiment, and a peek into the food we eat,' says the co-op's Caitlin Scholl.
'We hope the exhibition will also illuminate ideas about the food we as a community eat, or don't eat. For the more socially conscious, we've partnered with Action Against Hunger to encourage participants to take action against the ongoing global hunger crisis.'
The project aims to raise awareness about global hunger and to help address the problem through e-mails, social media and the project's webpage. A donation will be made to Action Against Hunger.
Connie Wan Pui-lam, a photography fan, says: 'I like to take photos of my meals and I like the idea of eating with people from around the world.
'Although one o'clock in the morning is not a normal time to eat, I'll have something light like fruit and yogurt. I'll do it quickly with my iPhone before going to bed.'
