Rating: Fun ✭✭✭✭✭  |   Hardness ✭✩✩✩✩   |   Memorable ✭✭✭✭✭

Prep time: Take it easy, take your time

Cooking time: < 1 hr

Total time: Would not waste your time

Servings: Everyone

Ingredients: 

1 tbsp Open-mindness

3 tsps Sensitivity

100 g  Empathy

1 Cup Diversity 

3 Bowls of Queerness

A Pinch of Confidence

A spoonful of randomness

Directions:

1.Preparing Ingredients: 

Wash off COVID isolation, Chop up oppression, Peel off vulnerability, Dice up inequality  

Break oppression, Grate gratefulness  

2.Cooking 

Knead our friendship, Stir togetherness, Let emotional well-being simmer, Oil flexibility, Blend culture, Mix language, Whisk in diversity, Tenderize relationship, Ferment international cultural exchange, Squeeze traditional art form, Deep fry creativity 

3.Serving

Wrap collectivity, Sprinkle confidence, Spread kindness, Layer differences, Garnish with harmony 

Dial-in Dinner Collective (DDC) is an art collective that co-founded remotely by Weera-it Ittiteerarak (Thailand, Hong Kong), Florence Lam (Canada, Hong Kong), Alberta Leung (United Kingdom, Hong Kong), and Eugene Park (South Korea) in June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. They met the year before at the cooking workshop co-leaded by Martha Rosler and Rirkrit Tiravanija from the Tai Kwun Summer Institute. Despite the cooking process becoming more complex since all the members are amateur cooks, it is a group of people who are generally working together towards the same goal (making a dish) that makes the process ‘easier’. Although there are different cultures in cookery from each region, the highly intense labour in food preparation evokes a sense of companionship. It is through the participation of the labour of cooking that performs an egalitarian dynamic. 

Due to the pandemic, the group reunited and they questioned whether it is possible for an individual to feel a sense of belonging through cookery, especially during this difficult period. There is no doubt that the food/cookery culture has generally changed in the modern age when the fast-food culture proves as evidence of the global-capitalised world. The practice of cooking/eating alone more often happens in a metropolitan city where the odd working hours and long commuting in a person’s daily life. It is the unaware physical isolation of oneself having a meal that enhances the usage of social media/online platforms; this phenomenon reaches its peak during the pandemic. DDC aims to use cookery as the art form to investigate togetherness by using digital technology in our global-capitalised world.