Exploring the roles of food and cooking in creating a sense of belonging

This project was based on the rituals we create around food and cooking, and the important role these play in bringing people together.

The power of food in bringing people together

I created an immersive installation in the university, asking students to share their experiences with food and cooking and explain what these meant to them personally.

Diverse descriptions of friends, families and communities, brought together by kitchen catch ups, Sunday roasts and takeaways. Friends, partners, siblings, pets and parents, coming together in front of a movie, over FaceTime, around the table or shouting over the sound of the extractor fan.

The responses conveyed humour, nostalgia and sadness, collectively creating a distinctly human feeling; a need for connection.

I developed these responses into a series of illustrations that portrayed this broad variety of narratives, and arranged them onto a table cloth where they could be viewed as one and unified by their message.