The LIVE DINING PROCESS July 3rd, 9th, 17th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 25th 29th and 31st

Tuesday, July 3rd , 2007

small plants growing, I see the earth. I see the soil.

Today, July 3rd, I went by to check on the plants. I have not needed to water since a week ago, because of the rain. All is well, growing and there has but no destruction. This has been a slight fear, since the inefficiently made table, was broken after the 24th of June. One of the branches I chose, as one of the legs of the table, was in effect, not solid enough, It would not have taken much, such as someone sitting on the table, (I think) for it to break. So the table was fixed and a more solid branch was replaced as the leg of the table.

THE TABLE:
The table is made of found and remnant pieces of wood materials. The table top was found in the garbage, with parts of the wood in the process of decomposing. When I began to construct the table, by securing the branches, as legs, to this decomposing table top, spiders and other bugs starting emerging from the wood. The table is a home to insects, as well as serving the LIVE DINING project. Insects are so important to the growth of plants and the health of soil, that give us healthy, nourrishing food.

The LIVE DINING table was constructed in an inefficient way, not all the screws screwed in, because of knots in the wood, bits and pieces fitted here and there. And yet it is functional and serves the purpose of a table.


Monday, July 9th, 2007

All was relatively well in the urban agriculture space, the polyculture (as opposed to monoculture) space, the LIVE DINING space. But some raccoons, had destroyed 3 corn plants.




Tuesday, July 17th, 2007






Saturday, July 21st, 2007
I met with Speranza, to have a meal, made up of leftovers from our homes. We heated up the leftovers on a stove in the LIVE DINING space. And we harvested one bean that was ready, shared it and hate it.


Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

Yes, and it is about plants growing, that produce our food, ... seeing the process, through images....

And then,

something disappeared....between July 17th and July 19th 2007....



details of what was there, but is no longer.....and of course what is there and continues to grow.....



What the LIVE DINING installation, agricultural polyculture space looked like with the chair removed



Monday, July 23rd, 2007
it was dark, we lit candles. We had lemon balm and yarrow tea, that we harvested from the LIVE DINING space. We were myself, Catherine and my two sons. My younger son took pictures by candelight.
PICTURES TO COME


Wednesday July 25th, 2007
INTRODUCING THE NEW CHAIR, THE LIVE DINING STOOL-CHAIR

MADE BETWEEN JULY 22ND AND JULY 25TH, AND INSTALLED ON THE MORNING OF JULY 25TH, 2007, in the LIVE DINING installation




THE NEW CHAIR -STOOL-CHAIR IN CONTEXT




..... more to come on the installation of the Stool-chair, ... and... LIVE DINING with Suzanne Harwood and Suzanne's friend Karen (from London)... ........



The LIVE DINING furniture

The fact that one of the original chairs put in the LIVE DINING for articule, was taken or stolen, made me think about writing further about the furniture of LIVE DINING at articule.

every chair is different - as a representation of diversity
some found
some used
some new
some fallling apart and solidified
some rusting
some made of plastic, or aluminum, or vinyl, or fiberglass, with or without paint, with or without color

and the new live dining chair goes with the live dining table in front of articule

*The new live dining chair is meant to be uneven, imperfectly made, to sink into the earth, to be on the soil.

the new Live dining chair is called the stool-chair to replace the stolen, found modified chair

One of the stool-chair's legs, the front leg, is a lilac tree trunk part, which dates from 2004, 3 years ago. It had been left outside on the earth, and became a home to an ant colony and other bugs. So it is decomposing, like the table top I found, but it is still very solid for now, and one of the main legs of the stool-chair. In that way it watches the table, which relates to the idea of matching items, colors and forms in our home, to create an aesthetic dining, living experience.

The idea of decomposition and awareness that the chair will not last, is one of the ideas that comes out of the concept of live dining. decomposition is emphasized in when we prepare the harvest for cooking, and the non-edible parts and put onto the earth in the garden, to validate their process of decomposition that will occur after the particular live dining moment over the duration of the live dining garden and the season.

I decided to make the stool chair because I did not have a found chair that seem to fit. In the same way i was inspired to make the table, I felt inspired to have a chair that carried the same concept as the table, which is a table made out of found and discarded, imperfect pieces of wood and branches, that are bits and pieces that have odd measurements and branches that have been pruned or cut from trees or scrubs in the goal of maintaining and controling growth or for reasons of wanting a “clean”, orderly, pleasing to the eye, perfected, efficient look.

the Stool-Chair (that replaced one of the original live dining chairs, in front of articule)

The Stool Chair is made of branches from pruning, a 3 year old rotting trunk of lilac tree, which was cut down when redoing the foundation of a house, a good chunk of bark, with the fresh, flesh of wood from a 50 year old maple tree that fell down during a very windy, rainy storm around March 2007, and the rest are discarded pieces of pine and cedar wood, with twigs of a cherry tree and dryed stem of an unidentified sunflower species of plant from fall 2006.


Live Dining clarification

Live Dining is in process. There was the live dining performance at the launch june 23rd
where, vegetables placed on the soil, were picked from the soil, as a symbolic act of harvesting.....
the live dining performance at the end will be with the harvest from the space
the end of July and beginning of august there will be live dining performances upon request or when i know when people are coming to visit live dining installation

So to clarify, i will not be live dining everyday. The process is the plants growing . Live dining is the plants growing. live dining is the chairs and table in the earth. live dining is when people come sit and dine from harvests from the live dining agricultural space, having herbal teas harvested from the live dining ground or food made from vegetables growing in the ground. live dining is the interaction that takes place as passersby engage with those sitting, through the medium of the plants growing - the plants that are our food, through a smile, through a questionning look, through saying what a nice garden, and asking the question: what is this about. It is audience engaging with me, with the work, with questions, together.....
Live Dining in process

the urban agriculture polyculture space is growing.


Everyone refers to it as a garden. I use the words agriculture and polyculture to remind of our connection to food production systems that do not have to be large scale, nor in the countryside (in rural spaces).

The concern for high yields, for the amount of food a plant can produce – the amount of vegetable or fruit that comes out of a plant seems to be a concern in the world of agriculture and farming.

But if yields are not a concern, if we get smaller yields, less yields, less food, is it okay?

When we farm on a very small scale, and gardening in the city we come to call small scale urban polyculture agriculture, maybe we accept what is growing well and what did not grow so well (smaller yields) and it is okay. We relinquish control over how much food we get and which crop specie did best and which did not, We accept to not control yields or the amount of harvest we get. For the point here is not about dollars, profit on the export market for the agri-food businesses and related corporations, who profit from monoculture agriculture and value of promoting high yields, the most veggies per plant crop. So if you want to get as much out of your soil and plants, you will want to use the fertilizers and best breed seeds and monoculture – one crop harvesting and transforming efficiency


FURTHER DESCRIPTIONS AND IMAGES OF JULY 25TH, AND JULY 29TH, TO COME.....


Tuesday, July 31st, 2007




On tuesday July 31st, Kirsten Forkert joined me for lemon balm tea and a "french cuisine" style dining, on beans and flower, a bit of basil and nasturtium leaves. That is, only 5 beans were ready to harvest, and they were delicioius! Placed in a plate, the uniqueness of each bean, it's color, shape, size, I felt we appreciated and then savored, after being boiled slightly in water.
Gerard Leckey, taking a break from doing some work inside articule, also came to join us for a break

June 23rd LIVE DINING launch

LIVE DINING was launched the 23rd of June 2007, in front of the storefront window of articule (artist-run center) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Me or I, Nicole Fournier constructed a frame of 16 inches high and about 7 feet by 11 feet. This frame was then filled with good earth and compost from a local organic farm (le Fort Senneville). The chairs were found or borrowed, and are either rusting, paint peeling off, or stained and marked by time and use in some way. The table, I constructed finally, as none was offered or found. But the table top I did find, and when I started putting the table together, bugs including a beautiful spider, came out of the wood. So the table is alive with rotting wood and is a home to insects, that did not bother us when we dined at the launch. The legs of the table are made from solid tree branches, some old, some newer, from tree pruning. I also used leftover pieces of wood, what I could find, to put it all together, in a inefficient way. The used chairs and constructed table (made of found and used decaying material), were placed in the earth, before the planting of seedlings. The chairs and table sunk in the earth and sunk more once sat in.

I thank the artists and members at articule, in particular, Patrick for helping me with the frame and Didier for shoveling compost and other work. I thank Alison Hackney from le Fort Senneville, for the compost. I thank Suzanne for helping me dumb earth and lending her beautiful, stained tablecloth. I also thank the staff at articule Catherine, Michele and Esme for their support.

As seen in the pictures, I planted seedlings and small plants of corn, squash, beans, bee balm, yarrow, lemon balm, motherwort and cosmos flowers, tomato and basil. So as with all agriculture, the beginning, we see more earth than green and color. In another month, growth will mean more green and colors.

Please see prior posts for the concept, history and description of LIVE DINING.

see LIVE DINING in Edmonton's performance festival Visualeyez 2007, in May 2007
http://visualeyez2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/live-dining-nicole-fournier.html


Here are some pictures below from the June 23rd launch, in Montreal, in front of the storefront window of articule.







LIVE DINING will continue "growing" (of course) throughout July and August, in front of articule.
LIVE DINING performances will take place august 25th 6pm and august 26th 2pm, 2007, in front of articule
www.articule.org

"Live Dining" history 2009, 2007, 2005-2006, background (2002-2004)

2009

Industrial Park Live Dining 2008-2009 - click on link to go to archive

http://industrialparklivedining.blogspot.ca/

2007

Live Dining addresses interconnections between harvesting our food, our daily acts of food preparation and dining, to the healing properties of wild plants, the importance of biodiversity, genetic diversity, in relation to human identity and human food security, to agriculture (polyculture*), and connect this to the experience and reality of the outdoor urban, suburban and rural context.

Since the Visualeyez 2007 Perfomance Festival in May http://visualeyez2007.blogspot.com/2007/05/live-dining-nicole-fournier.html ( see blog from May ), a new component, involved in the harvesting part of Live Dining, has been the FORAGING of wild plants (usually considered weeds), which was done in a Parking Lot in downtown Edmonton, as well in a private property lot, for sales, for condominium highrise development, in Edmonton.

We sit and prepare and dine on the harvests from the plants, in the dining-kitchen room installation that aims to create a sense of intimacy and security.

* Polyculture is agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, in imitation of the diversity of natural ecosystems, and avoiding large stands of single crops, or monoculture (which depletes soil fertility and contributes to decreasing biodiversity, which threaten global food security. It includes crop rotation, multi-cropping, inter-cropping, companion planting, beneficial weeds, and alley cropping. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyculture

MONTREAL summer 2007

This summer another "version" of Live Dining will take place in front of Artist-Run Center Articule, 262 Fairmount O. (near Park Avenue). Live Dining is supported by Articule as one of its Special Projects, www.articule.org http://www.rcaaq.org/actualites/nouvelle/1939. And there has been a desire, both on the part of Nicole Fournier and Articule to connect with Santropol in some form. Therefore Fournier's Live Dining project became a wonderful bridge that allows for this connection.

Live Dining will happen first in front of Articule, with some of the harvest going to the Santropol Kitchen for their meals-on-wheels that go to community members. Thus the Live Dining urban agricultural space. this summer of 2007, although not very big (7 feet by 11 feet), contributes to the source of urban organically grown food that supplies the Santropol Roulant kitchen.

Later on in the summer, in August, Live Dining will happen twice, once again at Articule, when corn, squash, beans and flowers are ready to eat, and also another time at Santropol Roulant's http://santropolroulant.org/2006/F-home.htm roof top garden situated on the grounds of McGill University downtown www.lesjardins.ca. on august 30th, and on September 20th during the Santropol harvest party at McGill once again.

"Live Dining" Montreal 2007

June 23rd to August 26th 2007 at articule, 262 Fairmount Ouest

 

August 30th and September 20th 2007 at McGill university, roof top garden project of Santropol Roulant and Alternatives

 

October 25th-27th, 2007, TBA as part of Artivistic 2007

Pre-Montreal - Live Dining in Sardinia, Italy - April 2007 and
in Edmonton’s Visualeyez 2007 - May 2007





Live Dining, April 2007, Assemini, Sardinia, Italy



in Edmonton’s Visualeyez 2007 - May

where THE LIVE DINING BLOG started

I started the Live Dining blog, wihout giving any background to how the process of LIVE DINING has evolved over the years. I was inspired to create a blog at Edmonton’s Visualeyez 2007 performance festival, because many other artist were doing so, giving that the nature of our work, was not about the traditional audience – performer relationship, having blogs about the works, gave access to another part of the process of the works and to audiences that could not be at the sites of performances in time and space. The performances were interventions in the city, being at times site-specific, as well as being performance, with the human body (bodies) acting, in action in space and time.

see Visualeyez 2007 blog for more info 



BACKGROUND TO LIVE DINING 2002 & 2004

Things started to change in september 2002, when I began work outside, in rural settings. “Corn field performances” 2002, I performed different actions in a monoculture genetically modified corn field, walking through the cornfield, rolling corn silks into my own hair, cutting down a few plants and digging in the cornfield. There were two parts to my intervention/performance in sept 2002: there was a questionning performance, and a more choreagraphed performance intervention was planed, where myself and two other participants wore security vest, dust masks and surgical gloves, with references made to the pharmaceutical industry and its connection to industrial monoculture gmo agriculture. Here there is being in interrelationships with the land and organic growth, by being in the gmo monoculture cornfield, walking and being in touch and aware of the reality of why this field exists and for which corporation, etc.


Corn Dining 2004

“Corn Dining” 2004 took place in a small organic cornfield, this mark a switch from being in a problem (monoculture) to engaging in a solution (small scale organic crops, with yearly crop rotation). Corn Dining or Corn field celebration is the precursor to “Live Dining” 2005 & 2006. Live Dining (called also "backyard mayan agriculture", takes the solution further, bringing polyculture to suburban backyard, removing lawn and replacing it with polyculture (diverse plants of veggies, flowers, weeds and herbs grown together), which in 2005 was based on Mayan 3 sisters polyculture of growing corn, squash and beans, although, I added more plants species as well to the 3. In both I make an indoor dining-kitchen room installation where participants and myself perform the outdoor actions of harvesting, in the same location as the indoor domestic and intimate actions of preparing, cooking and eating, to allow for a reconnecting dining experience, with no gap between time and space, where there is community interactive participation, where there is touching of our physical organic environment, in the site of food growth, while dining, which include touch, proximity, intimacy in exchange and production. Ecological, agricultural, cultural, social-economic, health and community concerns, connected to global environmental politics & international development issues, related to biodiversity and food security, inform these works.


Fournier has called it "cornfield celebration", "eating corn in
cornfield", "corn dining","backyard Mayan agriculture", and now since it is not always corn that is planted and grown, the name has finally become "Live Dining".

LIVE DINING 2006-2005
In suburban backyard Live Dining 2006-2005, chairs sunk into the earth. Corn, squash, beans, etc were picked from their plants growing next to one’s chair. Beneficial weeds grew all around us, some providing nutrients to the cultivated plants. Steam rose up from boiling water, from amidst the diverse species of plants that grew around us. We sat together in the same place, harvesting our food and dining together in furniture grounded in the soil.

The above describes Live Dining 2005-2006 in a suburban backyard. As an adaptable concept, Live Dining is an adjective as well as a concept that is adaptable and can be applied to different contexts – urban, suburban or rural, as well as public or private, to bring attention to our relationships to agriculture, food security, and look at notions of controlled and wild nature, utility and non-utility. The project changes according to the context.



Live Dining 2006

In 2006, Live Dining was described and defined as follows:
Intervention/Performance/Installation by Nicole Fournier

Pick, Prepare, Cook and Eat in sequence, in the space where the
plants have grown.

We Plant, Pick (harvest), Prepare (peeling and cutting), Cook and Eat (dine), right in place of growing, of as many variety of plants as possible: squash, beans, herbs, tomatoes, flowers, weeds (medicinal plants), and more

“Live Dining” is an outdoor installation and performance, which can
include various kinds of indoor dining room settings, in the small polyculture* agricultural space. The dining room installation has been adapted to how and what is
growing, and the furniture, is borrowed from fellow citizens, neighbors, colleagues, friends or family.

"Live Dining" could happen in:

fields, backyards, roof top gardens, reconstructed urban space - interior and exterior such as: abandonned lots, urban green space, city urban backyards, raised agricultural space on patios, stairwells, sidewalks, inside building where there are skylights, inbetween spaces and spaces not yet identified ....

"Live Dining" 2006,
invitation for participation in a backyard, in Saint-Laurent Burroughs,
Montreal, QC, Canada
In the summer-fall of 2006, the invitation to participate in Live Dining went as follow:
“Come join me in my backyard, within a small cornfield -polyculture space to dine!"

This work includes asking questions and validation of a suburban("not
cool"), urban, backyard, as a place open to the public, to commune in
a new kind of agricultural space, to replace lawn with agriculture
"garden", to be in, to share "live dining" time with others, to
validate sharing food, and reconnect to the source of where that food
comes from. For, most food grown comes from supermarkets, which depend
on exports and industrial monoculture agriculture farms, which depend
on corporations. Is food production about needs, or is it about
catering to wants? In "Live Dining" exchange is not monetary, it is
about exchange of the gifts of giving and receiving and sharing,
openness and true transparency. Generally, trying to find out where
your food actually comes from, can involve much research on behalf of
individuals, because of the closed nature of most corporations and the
business world, which have power over the food industry. Or the chain
from the source of food to the store is just too long, and even the
store owner does not know where his distributor gets it from. Live Dining address issues such as food security, biodiversity, global warming (as urban agriculture is part of greening of cities, which is one of the solutions to help cool our planet), local food production, and more.

As well as re-imagining ways that natural food sources found in the cracks of parking lots, might be harvested, Live Dining includes rethinking the systems of agriculture that take place in rural settings and their connection to our food supply in the city. Harvesting wild plants is called foraging, and foraging as a way to get food, came before the controlled, managed and organized system of agriculture. Foraging lets the wildness be, the plants have planted themselves. Agriculture needs us to control the planting and manage and care for the growth. With foraging, the plants have adapted to the environment and do not need to be cared for.

Live Dining encompases the embracing of agricultural systems, despite the negative impacts of synthetic pesticides and fertilisers based from the oil industry, and hoping that one day the inefficiency of a polycultural system will be favored over, the present day monoculture dominant system, with a renewing of the value of foraging, as the predecessor of agriculture , foraging will come into being.

The concept of Live Dining includes to bring cultivated – agricultural plants in earth (soil) to the site of Live Dining, where as well wild plants grow. Or bring Live Dining to cultivated and wild plant location of growth. Both cultivated and wild plants are significant to the concept.

edible plants growing in urban cracks Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

dandelion, shepherd's purse and sow-thistle on the table are the foraged wild edible plants that grow in the urban cracks of an Edmonton parking lot



Live Dining, on Wednesday, May 23, 2007, took place in a Parking Lot between the home bases of Visualeyez 2007, which are Latitude53 gallery and the Days Inn – the accommodations of the artist of Visualeyez 2007. The site of the parking lot was chosen for its lack of abundant controlled and wild plants, as of course it is a space made for cars, not for people or plants. The site was determined by the growth of edible wild plants, considered weeds, for the location of Live Dining (on May 23rd, 2007). Few hardy plants manage to seed themselves in cracks in the asphalt and small areas of wasteland in the parking lot, such as, where the parking lot grounds meet the side of the brick building, and cement borders. The edible plants growing are considered weeds. The weeds that Live Dining participant-performers-audience foraged (picked, ecologically, making sure to leave behind enough to persist), were: dandelion (flower and leaves), shepherd’s purse (heart shaped leaves) and sow-thistle (only young leaves), which we see picked and placed on the dining table, in the parking lot, in the photo.

Before the foraging by all took place, cultivated plants, planted in earth, in recyclable cardboard and plastic containers were set down in the parking lot and placed under the foot-leg of the table and chairs, which were also brought to the site and installed by all. Thus the feet of the table and chairs sunk into the soil of the cultivated plants, which were harvested, after the foraging took place, to prepare the meal for dining. The preparation, after foraging, harvesting, was to cut up and cook the vegetables and herbs and weeds. And then dine in the parking lot. We made a stir-fry, a soup and two salads.