napkins, menus on screen printing, flower arrangements, place cards, mixed media,
collaboration with Lukas Schrader and the team of the mensa.

Sophie Stadler

Grasp the corners of the tablecloth on the narrow side and -synchronously- pull it apart, then let it fall like a sail or parachute. Repeat until the refectory of the HFBK Hamburg looks quite festive. Clues to the occasion can be found in the napkins and place cards: In her graduation work, Belia Brückner hosts a food reenactment of the once notoriously immoderate Matthiae Mahl (feast). This time consisting of three vegetarian courses that can be carried to one’s table, and, far removed from the gormandizing of historical predecessors, entirely without swan pie.

From Thursday to Sunday morning, you were able to taste your way through the catering of last year's Culture Ministers' Conference, the aforementioned Councillors' Meal or the Continental Breakfast - shared by the three participants in the Cum-Ex stock scandal - and maybe ponder what decisions were once made over this chilli con carne or whether mimosas help to make bad speculation decisions.
White tablecloths and opulent flower arrangements stage the communal meal, which points not only to concrete antecedents, but beyond that to what food has to do with power, since the dinner party as a place of gathering is all sorts of things: Place of negotiation, staging of pomp and capital expenditure, intentions ranging from reconciliation to subtle threat. Who eats, who is invited, who is urged to practice moderation and when, and with what arguments?
The canteen as a political place functions on several levels: on the one hand, university refectories are state-subsidised, and on the other hand - and alas, some wisdom from U.S. high school films - who eats, discusses and spends time with whom is sometimes more important than anything that institutions can teach us in terms of content.

Here, no transferable object will remain, there are no photos of diners arranged into Tableau Vivantes, the flower arrangements are given away, only a red wine-stained tablecloth is kept as a souvenir. The pleasant thing about the work is actually that you can simply eat it. There is no compulsion to perform or to participate in any over-staged form of communion and feel uncomfortable about it.
Bon appétit.