Final Thoughts: Self-Interview

In conclusion of this column and as a formal pause of this project, I sat down with myself to discuss the process, the project, my intentions, and aspirations.

Yaara: You decided to embark on an exploration of what you call your “existential anxiety” around your identity as an Israeli Jew living abroad. Where did this come from originally?

Yaara: Well, it emerged from a tension I was feeling out of growing up away from a community I’ve always been taught is of the most importance - my family. I struggled to put together all the different elements that made up my sense of identity because I couldn’t find a space to occupy and inhabit. I felt more like an observer. This disconnection was exacerbated when I moved out of my parent’s home and realized I value observing holidays to a greater extent than them and felt disconnected from any structure of identity-making. So I was compelled to find a way to anchor myself if that makes sense, and make a space that included me as well.

Yaara: Yes, that does make sense. In many ways, I relate. So as part of this exploration, you started with maps and calendars and ended up in recipes. Could you say a bit more about food? why food?

Yaara: That’s a good question, one I haven’t really thought through before. I started by mapping my family’s roots, documenting established and constructed histories as well as traditions and practices. This was an act of context-making, in a way. Why food? that interest likely started from a reflection on the traditions of observing holidays with my family. Since we are not particularly spiritual, the ritual itself centers around symbolic foods. It was a way of starting to answer the question “how do I practice identity”?

Yaara: You also talk about the pull to compile these “collections” of recipes as you neared Passover. You couldn’t go home to celebrate with your family because of the quarantine, could you?

Yaara: That’s right, it was the first time I had to celebrate alone. Even when I lived out of state, I would always travel to celebrate with my family. So I started having conversations with my mom around these dishes I wanted to make, writing them down so I had access to them later too.

Yaara: But the recipes you collected — didn’t just focus on symbolic foods, right? it seems like they quickly spread to other recipes too.

Yaara: Yes, that is a good observation. The focus quickly shifted to a more general view of food practices as a means of identifying members of my family, those who share my intuition around certain dishes. This kind of group membership seems to emerge from a set of historically-contextualized rituals that coalesce in some affinity through their shared nature. It sounds very niche.

Yaara: Moving toward sharing this collection of recipes with your peers, however, felt like a revelation of some kind. Could you say more about that experience? Why did you choose to share?

Yaara: I felt a desire to include others in this experience. Looking back, I will call it an act of community-making through food. But at the time, I didn’t think too much of it. I asked the members of Self/Work if they wanted to participate. For those who said yes, I selected a recipe, wrote it, illustrated it, and explained its personal context. I was sharing a food-moment, situated in time and place. A key element I played with was my own voice - where do I want to be the author? where do I want to be a friend? where do I want to be a guide? Some participants changed the recipe, some annotated it, some left it, some continue to make the recipe. I wanted to share a part of me, to give, but I didn’t know how to assemble these interactions into a cohesive space. I imagine that every moment of exchange became its own space, even if I didn’t know how to inhabit it.

Yaara: An exploration that began with a question about self and identity (historically contextualized) then pivoted to questions of group identification and community. Why?

Yaara: In the first stages of this work, I was compiling a definition of my group membership identity through the collection of recipes (the calendar/recipe book is a collection of these definitions). Through these explorations, I realized that food is not only a way to define identity but also a way to practice existing identity and create new identity. Food across cultures is often a form of nurture and caring. By offering of your labor and time to others, you extend beyond yourself and reach out to others with a tentative new definition, you extend a group membership. This urge to create new tribes definitely emerges out of this moment of isolation and distance, but it is also a natural realization - I have an active role in defining my group, my role, and my identity.

Yaara: What do you envision a next step could be for this process?

Yaara: I am hoping to continue to explore the experience of sharing, the experience of receiving a shared item, the creation of a physically separate but synchronized space. So far, I’ve started with a a provocation: the salad.

Yaara: You and I likely have a similar understanding of the concept, but why don’t you say a bit more?

Yaara: In its essence, the provocation intends to establish a new baseline - no, we might not all be on the same page initially. What you call X, I may call Y. My salad and your salad may be very different. Are they all salads? yes, because that’s what we call them. The salad becomes a proxy for the role of perspective and approach in all of our lives, a reminder that we see things differently.

Yaara: Is this provocation, as you call it, also a reminder of irreconcilable individuality?

Yaara: I realize it could come across like that. The salad could be understood as a proof that we are all unique and therefore don’t have even this, a simple definition of a common food-type, in common. That is not my intention. The definition itself is less important than the act of defining and meaning-making. These create pockets of understanding which I see as a form of group membership, and is associated with a sense of deep validation and understanding. Not everyone needs to be included in every pocket. As humans, I think we are constantly looking to understand who we are and where our place is.

Salads play a subsequent role too. The experiment has two parts, two recipe stimuli. The first (“Make a salad”) is open ended, vague, and to some, barely a recipe. This sets some kind of baseline by helping show the diversity of the definition (kind of like a proof of the hypothesis the provocation presents). The second recipe plays with questions of authorship in regards to co-creation - does it feel like we’re cooking together if I tell you exactly what to do? does it feel like we’re cooking together if I don’t tell you what I want? If I don’t tell you, are you thinking about what you want or what you think I might be looking for? And if it’s the latter, does that mean we’re co-creating because you invoke my presence by thinking about my thoughts, intentions, and meaning?

Yaara: Is it an exercise in creating these kinds of shared groups or mainly understand them better?

Yaara: At the moment, I am more focused on understanding these kind of interactions but I am interested in exercising creating them too. It’s a challenge, though, as both exploring and exercising these spaces require large amounts of collaboration and that is a factor that is beyond my control.

Yaara: Does this exploration connect back to architecture (or is that even a relevant question)?

Yaara: I’m not sure if it is relevant. Maybe they extend to a question about kitchens and the way they manifest in various communities around the world and throughout history, maybe this extends to spatial food practices in general (eating on the train? eating with family? eating with the TV?) or maybe it bridges to another question about architecture and empathy - is that something we can really study? I also think these notions are also not particularly novel - many communities practice this kind of identity-making and are intentional and guided in doing so.

Maybe the more pertinent question is at what point do I realize that food is, again, a proxy and that I can substitute the original back into the equation?