The Humble Table: Rethinking Rituals

Traditions are ever evolving, keeping with dynamics on multiple temporal scales - from millennia of collective accumulation to individuals’ minute by minute behavior that gives rise to new waves of change.

In light of the pandemic, the dynamics of our social life across cultures were challenged and a new normal was born out of necessity. How does this reflect in our daily gathering around the table?

In this project, The Humble Table by Namliyeh meets Studio Inés Lauber for an experimental performance in MaHalla Berlin that challenges traditional notions of social eating. While gathering around a feast holds sacred symbolism in the creation of culture, the designers offer a lens to question current norms and rethink food rituals in the context of the rising environmental challenges across the planet.

The performance is the result of a digital collaboration between Berlin-based food experience designer Inés Lauber and Amman-based architects Aya Shaban and Manal Abushmais (Namliyeh) exploring new formats that transcend borders, traditions, and restrictions. The conversation evolved through a series of questions tackling the future of human bonding while taking out the social aspect of eating. The aim was to design an experience which fosters feelings of belonging and security, even in isolation, by seeking deep and raw connections to the natural world.

The Humble Table is deconstructed into a sequence of scenes where the feast extends far beyond the table-scape and into the space, creating tactile worlds where the senses and the body interact with the environment in a non-dualistic, highly decentralized manner.

Each scene portrays the universal language of the elements (earth, wind, fire and water) while making space for personal interpretations and gently guided by Inés Lauber on a process of sensorial rediscovery with focus on the presence and absence of smells.

Three protagonists are presented with an array of edible and non-edible ingredients foraged from the surrounding context that carry the spirit of the land. The interactive experience encourages the creation of new tools, recipes and connections through spontaneous interactions and curious play instead of passed down practices and traditions.

Through crushing, blending, mixing, unearthing and burning, new links are born and alternative pathways are paved by intuition and imagination capturing new narratives that are democratic and inclusive.

skills: