Take a Bite of the Future
The event that assembled community values, goals, and relationships into a lunchtime meal.
Making a sandwich is not a traditional approach to thinking about one's future, but to Kate Duffly, professor of theatre, and Michael Stevenson Jr, professor of studio art, it seemed like the perfect place to start.
In the newly renovated Aubrey R. Watzek Sports Center, students, staff, and other community members convened for a scavenger-hunt-esque event that encouraged forward thinking, internal speculation, and creativity. Cosmic Sandwich was the final installation in the professors’ partnership with the NorthWest Five Consortium, a coalition of five liberal arts schools in the Pacific Northwest of which Reed is a member; the money was originally awarded to them by the Mellon Foundation with the mission to support communities through art and activism. Reed’s previous event, Breaking Bread, adhered to a similar model of engaged community thinking, having had the goal of looking to the past to find changes to make in the present.
Duffly and Stevenson wanted to tap into the “playfulness and joy” of a sandwich to integrate food, as a universal connector, with social engagement. There were six different paper ingredients (kimchi, avocado, tomato, bacon, sauce, and the final slice of bread) with different prompts to answer, all related to different goals and aspirations for ÐÓ°ÉÊÓƵ, as well as for one’s own future. Participants wrote down their answers on the paper cutouts and assembled them into a symbolic sandwich before heading to the actual sandwich-making station.
The first ingredient, kimchi, asked participants to envision a new ritual or tradition that the Reed community might adopt 33 years from now, and to write down how it would bring people together and reflect community values. Answers ranged from evening stretch circles to a hands-on work day where students would help with campus beautification and restoration. Participants were encouraged to be imaginative when thinking of possibilities for the preferred future of Reed’s campus on the avocado cutout. Next it was onto the tomato, where the prompt required the rewriting of a law in society, keeping in mind how it would change relationships and power structures. I kept it simple for my own answer: free education. The students I spoke with at the event held similar equity-based stances, offering answers like free healthcare or childcare.
The sauce was more introspective, instructing one to think about how it would feel to inhabit your future self’s body, how you would move, breathe, and interact with the world differently. The bacon prompt asked about a superpower that you would bestow upon “your people” (e.g. close friends, family members, partners) to help them with an aspect of their world that is most difficult for them.
The dream was to combine Duffly and Stevenson’s expertise in socially engaged art and community-based performance with their interest in the role food can play in creating spaces for public collaboration. The event concluded with a group meditation that gave the participants the opportunity to reflect on their answers from the activity, and to enjoy a bite of actual sandwiches.