A culinary performance featuring artist Allan Wexler and chef Phoebe Tran. Wexler will activate his sculpture, Light Table (2021), by thoughtfully consuming edible arrangements prepared by Tran. Light Table is a dinner table set with transparent glass dinnerware embedded into its surface, each illuminated from below by individual light sources. Tran will create an array of translucent foods that will become enhanced by Allan Wexler’s glowing table.

The process of conceptualizing a menu for Allan’s table revealed the complex interplay of politics and identity within a place setting designed for Western cuisine. In recontextualizing the piece, Tran intentionally disrupts the expected functionality of certain items to shed light on the ways in which her Vietnamese food and culture juxtapose the framework of western culture and its ideals of a “typical” dinner table. Through this meal activation, Allan will be invited by the cuisine presented by Phoebe to subvert the western place setting - to eat with his hands, to dip his food into what is typically perceived as a water glass, and create a space for reflection and redefinition.