Convo.vore explores how objects can create the conditions for meaningful social interaction. In an era increasingly shaped by online communication, algorithmic feeds, and digitally mediated relationships, convo.vore asks how physical artifacts might once again become catalysts for spontaneous encounters between strangers. Rather than treating dining simply as a meal, Convo.vore approaches it as a performative medium through which conversation, collaboration, and community emerge.
Each project is organized around a carefully choreographed culinary event in which participants collectively prepare, compose, and share a meal using a series of custom-designed furniture pieces, serving objects, and culinary tools. Every object operates simultaneously as a functional implement and as a social interface, guiding participants through a sequence of shared actions that encourage cooperation without prescribing conversation. Rather than asking people to interact directly, the objects create situations in which interaction becomes a natural byproduct of making something together.
The events balance structure with improvisation. Participants first work individually, selecting objects and arranging ingredients according to their own aesthetic sensibilities. As the meal develops, these individual compositions are gradually combined, negotiated, and reconfigured into a larger collective work. The result is neither a predetermined composition nor a collection of isolated contributions, but an evolving collaboration shaped through the decisions of the group.
This choreography is intentionally subtle. Rather than relying on facilitated networking or scripted icebreakers, the collaborative act of preparing food generates moments for conversation organically. The shared task provides common ground, allowing participants to ask questions, exchange ideas, admire one another's work, and negotiate collective decisions. Food becomes less the objective than the medium through which relationships are formed.
Every participant also receives the object they used throughout the event as a functional keepsake as a physical reminder of the experience and the connections formed around it. The events are further documented through photography and time-lapse recordings that capture the evolution of the collective composition, extending the project beyond the meal itself and preserving the traces of a shared moment.
By combining interactive objects, culinary performance, and participatory design, Convo.vore reframes the dinner table as a site for creative production and social exchange. Each event culminates in a communal meal that celebrates the collective efforts of everyone involved. Participants leave not only having shared food and connection, but having contributed to a temporary creative work of collective authorship.
“The rituals of eating, played out on the plane of the dining table are similar to the rituals of domestic life.” - Sarah Wigglesworth (Increasing Disorder In A Dining Table)
Each project is organized around a carefully choreographed culinary event in which participants collectively prepare, compose, and share a meal using a series of custom-designed furniture pieces, serving objects, and culinary tools. Every object operates simultaneously as a functional implement and as a social interface, guiding participants through a sequence of shared actions that encourage cooperation without prescribing conversation. Rather than asking people to interact directly, the objects create situations in which interaction becomes a natural byproduct of making something together.
The events balance structure with improvisation. Participants first work individually, selecting objects and arranging ingredients according to their own aesthetic sensibilities. As the meal develops, these individual compositions are gradually combined, negotiated, and reconfigured into a larger collective work. The result is neither a predetermined composition nor a collection of isolated contributions, but an evolving collaboration shaped through the decisions of the group.
This choreography is intentionally subtle. Rather than relying on facilitated networking or scripted icebreakers, the collaborative act of preparing food generates moments for conversation organically. The shared task provides common ground, allowing participants to ask questions, exchange ideas, admire one another's work, and negotiate collective decisions. Food becomes less the objective than the medium through which relationships are formed.
Every participant also receives the object they used throughout the event as a functional keepsake as a physical reminder of the experience and the connections formed around it. The events are further documented through photography and time-lapse recordings that capture the evolution of the collective composition, extending the project beyond the meal itself and preserving the traces of a shared moment.
By combining interactive objects, culinary performance, and participatory design, Convo.vore reframes the dinner table as a site for creative production and social exchange. Each event culminates in a communal meal that celebrates the collective efforts of everyone involved. Participants leave not only having shared food and connection, but having contributed to a temporary creative work of collective authorship.
“The rituals of eating, played out on the plane of the dining table are similar to the rituals of domestic life.” - Sarah Wigglesworth (Increasing Disorder In A Dining Table)