This work begins with fragility—of nature, of the self, and of the structures we build around both. Through a carefully composed meal, which unfolds in constructed stillness, it invites the diner into a space where luxury and isolation are not opposites, but delicately and uncomfortably intertwined.
It aims to highlight the contradiction between ecological time—seasonal, slow, unruly—and capitalist time, which demands consistency, speed, and control. In fine dining, food is no longer just sustenance; it becomes an experience, a commodity, and a symbol. The performance critiques this shift, not with loud rejection but with quiet attention—to process, to material, to absence.
In this silence, fragility becomes visible.
The apple blossom is at the center of the experience, a fleeting symbol of spring’s return—tender, easily bruised, and offered here as an ingredient. Its ephemerality becomes a mirror for the fragility of the self, especially within the highly ritualized, pressurized space of fine dining, where perfection is expected and vulnerability has no visible place. The diner is guided in silence, instructed by menus—a choreography of discipline and elegance that masks the human labor and ecological cycles beneath.
Each element of the installation—etched prints pulled on handmade paper incorperating food waste, a fragile menu sewn by hand, vanitas-inspired still life photographs, a tree both blooming and gnarled—works to disrupt the illusion of ease. Fine dining’s minimalist elegance often hides its most pressing truths: the intense discipline behind the scenes, the invisible labor, the way absence itself becomes aestheticized.
Here, isolation is not an accident of design—it is the design. The diner is alone, their plate identical to every other, their choice removed. In this tightly controlled environment, the line between care and control blurs. And yet, in holding that tension, the performance opens space for reflection.
This is a silent revival.