RICHARD MITCHELL
design & strategy

DESIGNING FOR THE EXHIBITION

 

The design team (including myself) for the opening of the Current exhibition were asked to design a food experience that reflected the work of the artists that developed pieces for the exhibition.

 

The artists and designers were asked to choose a piece from the Otago Museum's garment and textiles collections and develop there own piece inspired by the museum's garment. Our team then took the briefs that the artists supplied to the museum relating to their work and selected a key concept from each artist to inspire a food experience to match their work.

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The artist's concepts used and dish and/or food experience developed were as follows:

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• Devon Smith – disembodied adornment

  • 'pork-scratchings' presented alongside an 'embroidered' pig skin to highlight that cooking allows us to see the disembodied parts of the animal as beautiful (i.e. delicious pork scratchings);

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• Flynn Morris-Clarke – constellation/night sky

  • sushi with constellations laser-cut ​into the nori presented;

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• James Bellaney – mystical/spiritual

  • inspired by the African piece from the museum, the key element of this dessert was the sprinkling of a 'mystical' dust on the dessert;

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• Jessica Leigh – feminine silhouette

  • ​food presented using feminine tableware (inspired by the original Victorian garment that had inspire Leigh);

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• Kelly O’Shea – the uncomfortable and unknown

  • hidden behind a screen food was presented to guests, but only if they placed their hands through a cut in the screen without peeking. From time to time  the food was replaced by the cold touch of a mannequin hand;

  

• Max Mollison – crab claw

  • Mollison took inspiration from the crab-claw shape on the garment, so ​we developed crab cakes to accompany his piece;

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• Melanie Child – acknowledging the previous life of the material (the original garment was made from salmon skin)

  • a dish made from the 'waste' of a salmon (the frame/skeleton and the skin);​

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• Karen Taylor O’Neill and Elise Johnston (Three Cups of Tea Ceramics) - functionality of design

  • ​given the very clear reference to everyday New Zealand culture (bush shirt, thermos and afternoon tea) a good old fashioned pie seemed the perfect accompaniment to this piece;

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• STEEP STReeT – fashion as a maker/marker of identity, culture and power;

  • a masked chef in (French) classical uniform stood silently with a tray of smoked salmon blinis (a classic French ​canape). This was a statement of the hegemony of the Francophile culinary tradition that espoused in most culinary education. Behind the mask, was a Maori culinary student whose food culture and identity would be squashed by French culinary tradition.