Poster designed by Farah Aly
There are certain things,
You simply
Can’t replicate.
That petrichor
Flavour of Basil.
A racing pulse;
That skip in the beat.
The fuzz
On the skin
Of a Peach.
That sound
A gruff, the snap
Of Dark Chocolate.
The fabricated tranquillity
Of thinking
You are in love.
And the bitter sweet authenticity
Of realising
You were never in,
To begin with.
Creatures of Compassion was a Performative Dinner which I directed and curated in collaboration with Theo Lorenz and Tanja Siems at Shoreditch Arts Club, London.
Compassion is the basis of togetherness. We understand the challenges of navigating its complexities, where personal agency and cultural references may intertwine, and experiences may be oversimplified. To develop compassion, we need to find a common ground. We invited guests to explore this framework of thought through an event of plant-based culinary experiences. We embraced cooking as a creative act—a combination of imagination, performance, experimentation, and artistic expression. Each dish was an experiment where technical expertise met artistic imagination. With creativity Theo Lorenz and Tanja Siems invented new recipes, experimenting with flavors and textures, and presenting sensorially captivating dishes.
The culinary experience was joined by pieces of verse written by me and the creatures of the Short-Film रक़ीब; Raqeeb resulting from a series of devising sessions that were cinematically filmed. During the culinary experience guests witnessed the characters of the film simply existing along with verses being performed live, by Dr. David McAlmont. Dadaism was here treated as an ontology for examining empathy and compassion. The ensemble considered the two to be teleologically volatile, accepting it to be an ‘a posteriori’ matter of concern. The creatures resembling humans, co-conspired with each other over trivialities, innuendos, and existential discourses.
Dramaturgical Score crafted by Tanja Siems and I
My intent was to give my collaborators of रक़ीब; Raqeeb, a chance to showcase their art at the Shoreditch Arts Club. Along with having the costumes of रक़ीब; Raqeeb, designed by Bea Marco, Violet Yue Cao and Qian Yan showcased at the dinner, I also used this opportunity to extend Farah Aly’s graphic design for the event into a series of Silk Screen Prints that could be exhibited at the Club. I made these prints with Artist Eddie Farrell under whom I have apprenticed since September 2023. These prints also then went ahead and marked the visual language of the dinner, defining each course in color and texture.