OUTLANDISH
2019 | Immersive Experience | 1 Week | Team of 8
The aim of this project was to transform an existing space around us and create an immersive experience. While thinking about ideas that we could execute, we came across one where we could create a pop-up restaurant that served abstract concepts. Each concept was turned into a dish that would be served to the incoming customers as a fine dine experience. This project helped us understand how we, as designers, could manipulate spaces and bring something alien into something familiar.
THE SPACE
PRODUCTION
After deciding that we wanted to provide our audience with a fine dining experience, we chose the space we wanted to work with. We then started sourcing materials and objects that we needed for our performance, and transformed our space into a restaurant. We obtained most of our cutlery and utensils from a flea market in the city, and refined them in our workshop. We divided the roles of the chef, the waiters and servers, the receptionist, and the manager among ourselves and arranged for costumes and props accordingly. We then prepared ourselves for our respective roles and came up with a script to have a better understanding of how we should behave with the audience.
We served a total of five dishes to our customers for the evening - Reverie, Censorship, Lust, Marriage, and Patience. To add on to out satirical take of a fine dining restaurant, we offered two more dishes that were always sold-out, Pain and Childhood. All graphics, including the menu, invitation and branding were done by Stuti Sukhani.
THE MENU
THE DISHES
REVERIE
Like the name suggests, the dish was meant to let the audience play with it like we play around in our dreams. A shallow bowl with milk was served with three test-tubes filled with red, green, and orange food colouring, and was accompanied with a dropper and a cotton swab dipped in dish soap. The 'dreamer' got a set of instructions along with the dish that informed them on how they should go about experiencing their 'dream'. They were then left to 'dream' on their own.
If you are a dreamer, come in
Hold fast to your dreams, before you pour it in
Life is a barren field, frozen with snow
But clouds come floating into our life
To add colour to these soulless skies
Drip, whip, slip a little
And then equip to trip a little
MARRIAGE
Not all marriages are as rosy and pretty as they look on the outside. Trying to depict the same satirical idea, we designed a dish that we thought best brought out that feeling. We served a bowl with some cranberry juice in it, topped with a cloud of cotton candy propped on two sticks, and a straw. As the dish is placed in front of the 'spouse', the cotton candy is dropped into the dish. As the candy floss dissolves into the drink, you get the idea that everything is not what it seems.
To add to the concept of 'Marriage', the customer is also given a certificate to sign, thereby developing their relationship with the dish and the pop-up restaurant itself.
CENSORSHIP
In a world where almost anything and everything is getting censored, we hoped to offer a dish that brought out the same feeling. We served a plate with a blacked-out newspaper, some tea, and cookies. The information you could read off of the newspaper was only what we wanted you to read, nothing more, nothing less.
To add to the idea of the dish, the server would place the item in front of the customer; all while having a "CENSORED" sticker taped to their mouth.
We all have a tough time waiting for our food when we go to a restaurant to eat. Playing along those lines, we came up with a dish that was meant to test your patience. It consisted of a game like Jenga with wafers as some of the game pieces. The idea of the dish was to make the customer 'patiently' pick the wafers out to eat.
PATIENCE
LUST
To depict this sinful concept, we decided to use melted chocolate as the dish's main element. We served this dish on a spanner, and did not provide any cutlery as we wanted the 'sinner' to eat this dish as creatively as possible.
THE EXPERIENCE
THE TEAM
Aditi Lunia
Devansh Khajanchi
Khushboo Mehrotra
Noora Yasmin
Shruti Chakke
Stuti Sukhani
Sunaina Desai
Urja Jhaveri