Come eat with me!

My graduation project in London, was called "Come eat with me!".

Living in London I felt it was difficult to meet new people. Everybody is busy and minding their own business.

Food for me, is a very big part of my life. Eating is a social thing. You sit down and really talk to each other.

So for my graduation project I decided to organize a series of three dinner parties with the aim to meet new people, to connect people.

How does it work? How do you invite people you don’t know? Where do you find them? After giving this issue some thought and discussing this with several people, I decided to invite one of my friends and ask that friend to invite two friends who I didn’t know and that didn’t know each other. That way you meet new people and there is always a link between you and them, which is a mutual friend. Furthermore, this helps to hamper any issues such as security

The structure of the dinners works in the same way a pyramid game works. The people that joined the first dinner were asked to bring two friends each to the next dinner. So every dinner the number of people grows. The idea is that after you have been to three dinners, you leave the group. The rest of the group continues having dinner together, until they have had three dinners and they leave etc. So the group splits into different groups that split into different groups etc. In time there will be loads of different dinners all around town.

Dinner 1

4 people (3 guests and I) • I invited Friend A • Friend A invited two friends who I had no previous acquaintance with: Friend B and Friend C

Dinner 2

8 people (7 guests and I) Friend B and Friend C each invited two friends: • Friend B invited D and E • Friend C invited F and G

Dinner 3

16 people (15 guests and I) Friend D, Friend E, Friend F and Friend G all invited two friends: • Friend D invited H and I • Friend E invited J and K • Friend F invited L and M • Friend G invited N and O

After dinner 3 Friend A , Friend B , Friend C and I stepped out, and the pyramid continued with: • Friend D invited H and I • Friend E invited J and K • Friend F invited L and M • Friend G invited N and O

Friend H, Friend I, Friend J, Friend K, Friend L, Friend M, Friend N and Friend O each invited 2 friends and brought them to the different dinner parties.

The people I invited, were asked to fill out a questionnaire. On this questionnaire there are a few basic questions, like where people live, what profession they have, where they are from originally etc. This information I used to mark on the map of London where the different participants lived. So to have a rough idea where the next dinners would take place. On the same form I asked my guests to bring one object that reminds them of the friend that has invited them to my dinner party. In the end I will have 15 different objects.

These objects are connected with stories and memories. The objects give me a little peek into the friendship between my dinner guests. The 15 objects together are now linked to eachother because of the similarity of being given to me for the same reason.

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