The Shared Table in Contemporary Art

June 2009, BIAD College of Art, Birmingham

A seminar investigating communal dining and its associations with community, utopia, conviviality and class within recent and contemporary art.

Speakers included artist, author and critic Dave Beech (chair), artists Pil & Galia Kollectiv and Karen Tam and cultural critics Dr. Anna Dezeuze (Art Historian) and Dr. Joan Gibbons (Course Director, MA Contemporary Curatorial Practice, Birmingham City University). A food-related performance by Pil & Galia Kollectiv punctuated the afternoon.

Companis was co-founded in 2009 by Kaye Winwood and Sian Tonkin. It was a provocative company whose intention was to bring people together through food and art events, creating bespoke dining experiences to immerse the diner in a fusion of performance, food and spectacle.