Kristen Rhodes-Hasler

Commensal Memories is a participatory artwork grounded in the experience of sharing a meal at a dinner table. The work aims to collectively raise recollections of personal pasts by mediating a space that may be a familiar experience. Food memories are some of the strongest memories humans have as they engage all the senses, and the brain makes involuntary connections between food smells, tastes and previous experiences. Bringing hand embroidered textiles to the table provides an alternate route of engagement to the work for those who feel more familiar with familial tablecloths. Some participants remain at the table for the duration of the artwork, deemed “mediators,” whose role it is to invite viewers to participate in the work. Mediators also engage the public participants in conversations surrounding their remembered memories of similar experiences. Whilst the physical participatory element of the work is experiential and durational, the work lives on through the participants and how they respond to the memory that may have been evoked by experiencing this artwork.

⁂

Kristen Rhodes-Hasler is a New Zealand born artist whose interdisciplinary practice often focuses on exploring ideas of memory, and time. Many of her artworks have an element of viewer participation and Kristen works across multiple media such as fabric, glass, food and alternative photographic processes.

Website, Instagram