Vanice is a multi-disciplinary designer based in London and originally from Toronto. She has a BSc in Computer Science and previously worked in UX before deciding to pursue a masters at RCA. Her current work is interested in cultural transmission and the related processes of invasion, negotiation, absorption and adoption.
Vanice Cheung
Design is
- nonsensical
- considerate
Absurdity in life allows us to respond with equal absurdity. Of course, with some measure of responsibility.
Supper at 11am considers rituals as highly designed events, looking particularly at Communion within the Christian tradition. The project began by looking at how its current practice is such a successful tool at excluding the Queer community and questions the process of preservation and boundaries between “correct practice” and “blasphemy”.
An old church pew is fitted with apparatus to make the two main elements of Communion – Body and Blood, wafer and wine, bread and grape juice. A camping stove and simple grape press offer a reinterpretation of Communion, suggesting a different commensality (the practice of eating together). Perhaps when we start looking at rituals as they are – inventions – we can begin to see how structure cements theology and reproduces order, dictating interaction.
Why is Communion at 11am if it’s based on an evening meal? Why do we sit in forward facing rows to eat together? Why aren’t we preparing the food for our community? When the directive is: “Do this in remembrance of me”, what is this?
