Lee Mingwei “The Dining Project” is an ongoing project, where he hosts meals in an installation within museums and galleries. He had started it during his first year at Yale University. He put up posters all over the campus, inviting people to share food and have conversations. After the first day he received 45 responses.
Through lottery, he arranged private dinners. He has prepared food considering a guest’s dietary preferences, food being a catalyst and medium for trust and intimacy.
“My artistic language is not primarily that of visual images, shapes, or words, but rather of awareness, internal experience, and interaction. My work raises questions about what art is and can be, about how it changes our experience not only of the present, but of our interpretation of past and future experience. “
“The participants’ sharing of thoughts and feelings with strangers is a gesture of trust and honesty that begins with one person in a private setting, and grows to embrace an anonymous public who might benefit from being allowed to look into the hearts and minds of those immediately around them. Having received food, dialogue, and a book from the artist, the participants now in turn offer nurturance to others by sharing their interior lives, and inviting readers to explore their own.”
Sources:
The Dining Project: The Art of Nurturing
https://www.perrotin.com/artists/lee_mingwei/550/the-dining-project/48700
Catherine M.B. 