|| The Project ||
Dysfunctionalware is a series of dinners featuring a set of china dishware designed to spark uncomfortable conversations about white supremacy and privilege. Each dish is illustrated by local artists with images of personal experiences with systemic racism and racial privilege. These dinners are intended for people who identify or sometimes experience passing as white, as a pl
ace to explore what "whiteness" may encompass, allow, and provide. The art probes the subtle cultural messaging that white culture is superior to others and inquires that we examine how it can be damaging to all of us. Guests sit and eat a meal, bite by bite uncovering the artists’ images as facilitators guide the table through discussion.
|| The Dinners ||
Up to 10 guests attend each dinner event. Dysfunctionalware takes place at various donated venues around the city, where host organizations and small businesses can invite their members, staff, friends, or volunteers to share a meal and support one another in antiracism. Through a multi-course meal, each guest’s cleaned plate will reveal a new work of art for one-on-one sharing or group conversation. Facilitators stay with the group to guide discussion toward the personal, and to probe further when needed.
|| The Meta ||
Fine china is meant as a symbol of white privilege: often inherited along family lines unearned and unchosen, and shown off in an unfrequented room. Though it’s a massive set in a fine piece of furniture, its owner largely forgets it unless another person or an unusual situation overtly draws their attention to it. The title ‘Dysfunctionalware’, a ceramics reference, invokes the dominant white culture’s discomfort with and avoidance of talking about race, thereby further propagating injustice regardless of intent.
