A Cycle of Performances, Exchanges, and Animations Designed to Activate Public Spaces with Empathy 

The purpose of Food Store(y) is to bolster civil society via camaraderie and communication.

Food Store(y) is a DIY economy using empathy-driven story collection to build new bonds via food sharing and storytelling. Creating spaces for personal, and historical storytelling and giving stories the physical value of comforting nourishment, addresses social and economic borders. In this system most things have similar values, so there can be no monopoly, only the amplification of the stories told, and the reminder of why we cook food for others in the face of tragedy.

Come sit at my table and tell me a story.

Sign up via my contact page and I will either exchange with you directly or connect you to another participant.

FOOD STORE(Y), is a series of performance actions that generate animated gestures and an archive of stories, each resulting from a meal with a stranger. Dozens of short animations are based on the intimate gestures of storytellers with whom I record a series of interviews. In this project, I document feeding a stranger at my table in exchange for recording their story, which I then condense into an animation of just a few, intimate gestures, to be exhibited publicly. This is part of a larger long-term project which has 3 products: Interview collection as documented performance, animation exhibitions, and a final repository of stories in the form of a podcast.

Practicing care, especially for others,  feels good when you don’t know what else to do. This experimental economic action can take place immediately, alongside capitalism, and creates an experience for participants which is wholly different from doomscrolling or clicking “Add to cart”.