Infinite Dinner: Precarious Luxury

May 2024 - June 2024

Location: Rotterdam

Commissioned by: Studio C.A.R.E.

Photography: Frank Hanswijk, Studio C.A.R.E., Dinner Guests

This episode of Infinite Dinner delves even deeper into the depths of temporary housing and our relationship with food.Guests are invited to a location in the Old North of Rotterdam, with a partially vandalised, overgrown interior, a wild garden bed spreading across the second floor, and a dinner table with a distinct building site character.

Upon arrival, guests are asked to help harvest herbs and greens for the first course.Chef Bryan sends them on a mission to retrieve a mysterious plant from the rooftop. After searching and debating, the guests break through to the staircase, discovering a cluttered attic. They eventually find the plant on the roof and bring it down to the kitchen to be used in the next course.As the borscht soup is served, coloured liquids start running from the ceiling down the walls. The electricity suddenly cuts out. The kitchen staff start complaining, and the guests try to help by checking the fuses.

Outside, near the entrance, a stranger waits with two pizza boxes on a bus meant for his friends. Since they don´t show up, he invites everyone to join him.During the bus tour, he talks about his life in the city and the ongoing housing crisis.
The group arrives at a marketplace, just as the municipality is discarding the remnants of a long market day. The contents of the pizza boxes are being consumed for the third course.

Next, the guests head towards a fenced courtyard of a large building block. Inside the garden, they are asked to help dig out their meal from the earth, where it has been slow-cooking for several hours.The meal is brought to the table, served alongside various sauces.
As the course nears completion, one guest is called upon to go under the table and press a button.The tables lift up, and all the food and sauces are collected into a vessel.The guests then assist the kitchen in preparing a broth from the leftovers, which will serve as the base for the borscht in the next dinner.

Returning to the tables, the guests find them decorated with potted mint plants and burning candles. They are asked to look beneath their chairs, where they find tools to destroy the table decoration.To their surprise, the decoration is the dessert, and they enjoy the smashed edible parts together.


Performance Artists:

Sara Bendandi
Gökçe Çaliskan
Anna Halek
Clara Harmssen
Louis van der Waal
Kees Proper

Food
Keju Kitchen

Music
Pietro Frigato

Documentary film

Camera
Jivan Frenster

Editing
Jiji&Lili

Special Thanks to:
Stichting Stad in de Maak
Stichting Huis van de Toekomst


Special special thanks to:
The Mysterious Plant Levisticum officinale (Lovage)