PORTO APERTA
Ingredients
1 tbsp of political ideology.
1 tbsp of random acts of hospitality.
1 tbsp of primary research.
400g of traveling abroad to a country focused on in your research
400g of cooking
Add salt to taste
Directions
First, find an ingredient that excites you. (For this recipe I have chosen the tomato)
Accept random acts of hospitality. (For this recipe I went in search of immigrants and residents of Ireland who use the tomato in extraordinary ways)
Develop a political ideology.
Finely chop the ingredients to reveal the hidden reality of its production. (Bonded labor)
Add finely chopped ingredients to a large pot on medium heat, add political ideology, random acts of hospitality, and primary research. Cook until it develops a bitter taste.
While this is cooking travel abroad to a country focused on in your research ( for this recipe I found myself traveling to Napoli, Italy to learn Napoli cuisine in the restaurant Trattoria Medina)
While arriving home combine the cooking skills you’ve learned from your job as a trainee chef, random acts of hospitality, and your chosen country to travel to.
Add 500g of each ingredient and stew until you have a project that tells the history and contemporary practice around your chosen ingredient.
This dish often results in a bitter palate resulting from reality, so add salt to taste.
Serve as a pop-up restaurant in your chosen location.
Debut event
Porto Aperta; My NCAD degree show project was the subversion of how we view hospitality. The exhibition took place between June the 8th to June the 11th. Resulting in an exhibition of work, research surrounding the dark reality of our always summer in the supermarket culture and a pop-up restaurant that guided us through the work with taste. The purpose of the pop restaurant was to communicate the tomato's history, trade and production.
VISUAL Carlow
Following the success of the grad show work and research. I was invited to collaborate by artist David Beattie on his project " Distant Light from Future Stars". In this adaptation of the work, I cooked the produce which was grown by David Beattie and company in a solar-powered greenhouse. The debut event of Porto aperta explored the concept of the dark reality of our produce in the fruit and veg aisle. This event focused its sight on highlighting the importance of communal gardens and hospitality within the town.
The Lab
Commissioned by Dublin City Arts Council and Curator Sheena Barret, I was invited to revise my project Porto aperta for an audience of curators. The initiative set out was to re-enact the events of the first event and follow up with a discussion of how we should view contemporary art as a broader spectrum. Porto aperta laid the foundation of a discussion which would discuss the topic of how unconventional art centred around hospitality can exist in the modern art world and whether should it even be considered art.
“I regularly ask myself is this art is to this day. I would go on to work as a chef for a couple of years, filling my arms with cuts and bruises. Adding bags under my eyes which never seemed to leave, the more I worked the longer the days the less sense it made.
The world of hospitality is as destroying, tiring and sacrificial as the art world. But it is a neglected industry where I could lay my creative foundation and many others have to. When you enter this world coming from a creative background you become the head chef's worst nightmare but in all honesty, you look at the ingredients as if they are gleaned objects hoarded in your studio. Escoffier and the mother sauces seem irrelevant.
Every time during service I would find myself disassociated and wonder what if I sent out the fish head rather than the surgically removed cuts of fillet, what if the sauce was blue rather than a digested brown, what if I brought the food to the table, sat with the customers and ate as if it was part of the experience.
I think the neglect of the hospitality industry in Ireland and the cost of living has forced many of us into this job who never thought of it as a career and the more of us oddballs enter the industry the more hospitality gets turned on its head, then it becomes art. As if Joseph Beuys and his stuffed hare decided to open a restaurant.”