Following my recent blog entry, that unpacked the role of food as a medium in contemporary art, I decided to interview Sophie McIntyre, a Melbourne based chef who is hosting intimate 12 person dinner parties to encourage new connections in the face of digitisation and post-pandemic loneliness.
In our conversation, McIntyre explores the phenomenon of loneliness in your 20s, the intersection of food and art and the ability that sharing food has to facilitate a certain level of intimacy and connection.
TRANSCRIPT:
[Resonate by Tomos plays in the background]
Lily: I’m in my car right now on my way to the Burnside cafe in Fitzroy where I’m going to meet the young Melbourne chef Sophie, and I’m listening to her playlist named songs to make friends to which is very apt because it really encapsulates why I’m interviewing her. Which is because she has created this really interesting initiative called the Supper club, and the Supper Club is an experiential gastronomic moment that puts 12 strangers in a room together and gets them to have dinner. So, hi Sophie.
Sophie: Hello how are you? [laughs]
L: I’m good so, can you tell me a little bit about the Supper Club?
S: Yes, okay so, as lockdown happened, I had heaps of friends who, they’re lives had changed so drastically, and I think were in an age group 25-26-27 where Lockdown was like a very formative year, in terms of a lot of people grew up, their perspective on life changed and as a result I think it meant that people really evaluated their life and also their friendships. And there was just this really big shift within people’s circles, and then coming out of it some friendships did survive, some friendships got really strong and then some friendships didn’t. And people as a result started feeling, I guess, quite isolated. And so, parallel to all of this I have always loved to cook, and to entertain and as the weather got nice in September and we were still in lockdown we were going to the markets every weekend. And um, doing big cook ups on a Friday night and doing prawns and oysters and making it like, a real bookend of the week. And I just kind of saw the love for that that everyone had and the need for like, a space to do that with people you don’t know. Um so that’s how it started.
L: So, when I first saw the Supper Club, I was immediately reminded of this Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, who is a conceptual artist who had an exhibition at the NGV in 2018 where he would choose four random strangers who had been visiting the NGV around lunchtime and get them to have a Thai meal. But his work is really about, you know, what is that art? Is it the food? Is it the people? Is it the interaction their forced to have when they share the art or is it the environment that he creates and the conversation that comes out of that? And like I just feel like what you’re doing is so similar, and I know that like you’re coming from a food background, but I wonder if like your visitors think that they are in art?
S: So, I think food and eating, I think we forget that we’re doing it sometimes. You know, you eat your breakfast, you eat your lunch and sometimes its just sustenance. And I think, you know what you just said about the art and kind of making it a conscious effort and being aware that you’re eating and being aware that you’re sharing a meal. And you know so many of the oldest cultures in the world have the best recipes and they’re so authentic and in depth and I think when you combine people with that richness of culture you kind of get something magic because you get stories, you get shared experiences, you get the fabric- it sounds so crazy- but you get the fabric of life. And that in itself, culture is art. Like, that’s it, they feed off each other.
And something that I find really interesting about this, is that there is every publication, there is every podcast about dating. There is, like, dating until the end of the earth, but literally no one talks about friends. No one talks about how to make friends, no one talks. It’s just like, it doesn’t exist. And I just think that like, if we can kind of facilitate that in a very relaxed environment. That’s the dream, absolutely. There has to be a space, that’s why I’m doing this, I’m so passionate about it. [music I mixed fades out]
LILY BEAMISH 
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