Gonflables et amuse-bouches
Keg de Souza

Gonflables et amuse-bouches features an inflatable structure, constructed out of disposable tablecloths, designed to host food related events and discussions about food politics and radical spaces, the literal English translation being, “Inflatables and mouth-amusers.”   Gonflables et amuse-bouches is based around a series of discussions over dinners in my studio where the inflatable structure is simultaneously being built. The dialogues will be documented in a variety of ways to be reproduced as a publication that will then be launched at the final food event within the inflatable structure in December.

The inflatable architecture echoes radical spaces not bound by the restrictions of rigid structures and sites and has the possibility of being able to be moved around with the potential to house catering for various activist events.

Gonflables et amuse-bouches cites FOOD, the conceptual restaurant founded in 1971 in SoHo, New York City by Gordon Matta-Clark, Carol Goodden and Tina Girouard as a starting point for these discussions and dinners. FOOD was a pioneer in many ways. Besides the kitchen being fully open to the restaurant many of their cuisine concepts predated anything that was common at the time; the seasonal and locally sourced menu, wildly paired ingredients, regional and ethnically diverse foods all of which have become current restaurant trends. FOOD became a social hub for the local arts community, employing many struggling artists as waiters and cooks and importantly, provided good food for a low price and mutual support between artists.


EVENT 1: FOOD
Screening, Dinner and Discussion
Friday 2nd November
Screening & Appetizers at 7pm
Dinner at 8pm
Darling Foundry, 745 Rue Ottawa
(Enter via Queen Street entrance)

This first event will start out with an informal screening of FOOD, a short film directed by artist/photographer Robert Frank about Gordon Matta-Clark, Carol Goodden and Tina Girouard’s conceptual restaurant of the same name. Founded in 1972 in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, FOOD brought together many factors of the local community, artists and otherwise, becoming a space for dialogue and conversation as well as a living piece in and of itself.
This will be followed by an informal dinner party, a catalyst to brainstorm ideas around the themes of the project, and also a chance to meet and talk over dinner with some people in Montreal who are interested in utopias, radical spaces, art, architecture, radical organizing, food, food politics, and the ways which these themes can meet and intersect.

Based on a selection straight of the menu of what was served at FOOD in the film, we will be serving borscht, gumbo and bowls of fresh parsley.  BYOB.

The dialogue will be recorded and we hope that by attending you are willing participant and contributor to the conversation.

Feel free to invite people who might be interested but please make sure you R.S.V.P. to either kegkicks@yahoo.com or dlle.lew@gmail.com