HOST was a project that made us ask, what does hospitality mean for us? How do we question our own power and privilege as an organisation? What does it mean to be in a position of power and authority whilst also allowing ourselves to be guests or co-hosts or something more interchangeable. What does it mean to offer physical hospitality but also foster emotional, intellectual, theological and philosophical hospitality with those who disagree with us?

Host was an experimental art programme of shared meals, discussion and communal activities designed to test out notions of hospitality. The aim was to open up shared spaces where we can think critically and creatively together about the role that hospitality might play in communal life.

Co-produced and activated by the community at SAW, the project arose from a desire to better understand the gallery’s relationship to the people that use it as well as to reflect on wider social and political issues of the present moment.

Throughout host different groups connected to SAW conducted practical exercises in hospitality to build a collective knowledge. A growing archive of drawings, photographs, diagrams, testimonies, transcripts and recipes, were presented in the gallery as a record of our ‘acts of hospitality’ to make the learning visible as the project unfolded.

Our Starter event launched the project with local residents, artists and co-producers sharing chips in Shieldfield park. Gathering around shared bags of chips in the public space of the park allowed people an easy and comfortable way into conversations with new people. It was fun – some people even had a go on the swings. We warmed up over cups of tea at the Forum Cafe and explored what hospitality meant to each of us, within our different cultures, experiences and communities. It wasn’t a traditional start to an arts project, but one that injected fun and sharing from the offset and went on to develop these conversations throughout.

HOST Main Dish

Acting as a mid-way point in the HOST programme, Main Dish was an evening of food, art, discussion and reflection. Residents, community members and artists explored what positive community and hospitality looked like for them in open discussion, in front of Lloyd Wilson’s commissioned billboard diagram. Artist David Lisser instigated two performances over the course of the evening. Firstly, with David conspicuously absent, guests had to break down a wall of bread to enter the gallery. With 65 guests attempting to gain entry, the bricks of bread were passed from hand to hand, with those at the back of the crowd reporting a continual flow of bread arriving from strangers’ hands. Set out for a luxurious meal, the gallery became a space where individuals ate, shared and chatted together as one community. Most guests were only separated by a table, but David Lisser and some fellow artists joined us via the internet and tablet computers, sharing exactly the same meal, only in a different space. David wanted to examine how this might change the communal aspect of the meal, in a society where we have more connections to the online world, but may experience less person-to-person interactions.