New Harvest Day - A Project

The brief Something for Everyone was to improve communication between generations. I did this by concentrating on the family, looking to create an awareness of the importance of the close relationships so this could be passed from one generation to the next. I designed within a new festival day, called New Harvest Day, which was loosely based around Harvest. The family come together through a celebration of food over a family meal that happens at the start of each season. It is about sharing an experience through food and being connected to one another. I wanted to create memorable moments by prompting conversation, which would then become family stories to be shared over the dinner table in the future. This happens through breaking some existing etiquette around the dinner table to make everyone relaxed with one another as a family.

NEW HARVEST DAY

The day comprises of 4 designed elements; a brand, the food, the meal and the objects which all create the overall experience.

 The Brand
This Season provides everything you need for your New Harvest Day meal. The food is all seasonal and locally produced. The packaging tells the story of the food, which is all sourced from family run farms, the story of the family and a little about the importance of the ingredient itself.

The Plates

The plates for the meal were individually coloured. Each plate was served with only one food on it, which was then to be shared out amongst the family. Each plate featured a laser etched word (you, me, us, them) which collected crumbs and stains and was revelaed when the food had been finished. These words are to make each family member consider the relationships within their own family and to consider which of these words they feel fit the dynamics of their own relationships.

The Utensils

The utensils were simply colour coded to each plate. The utensils served a specific purpose to the food served on the plate. The meat had carving knives, the salad had salad spoons and so on. By colour assocition and a familiarity with the use of the objects the process became intuitive and people automatically shared food to one another. I toyed with the idea of having one ambiguous object for each setting on the table to see if it began any new conversation or interactions, but left it out for the final meal.

The Table Cloth

The table cloth was left marked with a message from the plate once it had been cleared from the table. This was to prompt new conversation and for people to now be relaxed to tell people new things about them, so the family mutually grow to know each other a little better and form trusting bonds. This is also the time when people feel they want to leave the table to it keeps people together at the table for longer.

The cloth has a long napkin at each setting, so each person becomes physically connected to the table, and to each other and also each person can see visually that they are connected through the food on the table to one another.

I laid out a pen at each setting which everyone used to draw on the table cloth, which was literally a blank white canvas. This allowed new dinner table interactions, ways of communicating and created a sense of fun around the table. It allowed people to be more relaxed at it was an allowance to be disruptive of a strict etiquette which can exist at a dinner table.

The Rocking Chairs

The rocking chairs just allowed people to relax a little more and be at ease and in comfort. Hopefully this would be an association with the family meal as well as being a link to your first experiences of eating, and also food sharing; being fed by your mother and nurtured and rocked afterwards. Perhaps this is something in us all, as people only rocked on the chairs after food and kept them still whilst eating.

The Bread
The single length of dough was twisted into a shape that could be broken by each person and baked. This forms both a bonding ritual and a sensory experience of the meal. Our senses have strong links to memory so the smell and taste of warm, freshly baked home-made bread will be a memory of being with family. Ripping your own bit of bread away from the bread also serves as a more relaxed etiquette. At one point just before breaking, everyone is connected to the bread.

The Meal
At the beginning, even though I am very close with the family, there was a sense of awkwardness at me being there with the camera. It didn't last too long, really once everyone had handled the bread and eaten it off the table things were more relaxed, and I felt that they were taking less notice of me being there.

I was really surprised at how little instruction was needed. It helped with the overall atmosphere that I didn't need to step in and give any guidance. It also meant things were actually working they way I intended, which was nice. Communication through writing on the table really changed the whole atmosphere. Everyone was laughing and joking all of a sudden and everyone was being so much more relaxed with one another. It was great to see everything let loose like this. The best part was the fact that Jim, the Dad, admitted after 29 years of marriage to Julie that for his stag do he actually went to Amsterdam and he had "smoked whacky-backy", only for Julie to admit knowing that the entire time. So it was great to see a real revelation being made, and a real memory being created in the family. It's already been the centre of jokes quite a few times since.

At the end of the meal everyone rips up the table cloth to reveal the normality underneath. This symbolises that the meal is over the same way as it begun with the bread. People can keep a piece of the cloth which holds a specific memory or moment from each meal.

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