“eating at home”

BY: HYON SOO KIM

Without any pre announcement or acknowledgement in the middle of a major city a typical korean style full course dinner is set on a matt.
Artists start to eat as if they are eating at home. Any guest and willing participant can spontaneously join in.
Korea has been celebrating a highly developed culinary art for tausends of years and she is well known for her friendliness to quests and visitors.
“Eating” means in Korea “Sharing”, signifying an important and truly human characteristic of Man.
It is quite impossible for a Korean to imagine eating alone without any company. Taking a meal is highly human, a friendly event between people.
This very action can create friends, colleagues of life, a community of compassionate people from different cultures and provide an opportunity to learn and respect other cultures with an open heart, in the middle of a wide and open city.
On the other side, a sudden resistance, a provocation or a protest from onlookers, a police, or curious viewers are willingly anticipated. This will only help us to accentuate the truth of our modern daily life that it is in fact unsafe and uncertain and that being different has no ground of reason to be ashamed of or to be discriminated.
Various individual forms only carry an universal content.
The project “eating at home” is precisely a creative symbol for the dialogue between cultures. Only when every culture is left to their individualities and when the imposed western globalisation does´t take away cultural uniqueness, an equal exchange of culture is possible. The people are truly equal when and only when accepting each other in their individuality. If everybody is under the same influence and is obligated to only one view of the world, there could be no meaningful dialogue and no more diversity. Art can only create symbols and formulate suggestions, that the viewers may learn to rely more on the reference of one’s own experience.