Re:mains - Art jewellery paired with ambiguous eating implements as a means to explore interoceptive sensory perception

Like fashion, food is a powerful, far-reaching language that both reinforces and transcends class boundaries and enables more fluid cross-cultural communication. As materials, food-stuffs, and more specifically food waste, awaken the senses, with the more visceral of these dining remains tending to initiate instinctive ‘gut’ reactions from those experiencing them. Although there are several artists who explore alternative eating artefacts in the context of an experimental dining experience, such as Kaye Winwood and Nuala Clooney, few have combined this with the wearing of art jewellery. Hindle’s Strange Pleasures study (conducted in 2014) uncovered possibilities for public interaction and ‘play’ at the hands of the wearer, stating that ‘the art jewellery that they explore during the study points to how the wearing of adornments can constitute a leisure experience that is one of freedom and play’ (Hindle, Colley, Boultwood, 2016, p.310). As a result of this study, I have been exploring ways in which to more playfully promote and exhibit my jewellery alongside a developing complementary collection of ambiguous eating implements, to enable an immersive and experiential food-based presentation to the public that more directly questions body boundary and activates the participants interoceptive senses (internal bodily sensations). Through practice-led research I bring together jewellery - created predominantly using food waste - and ambiguous artefacts for eating, inviting diners to wear these visceral jewellery pieces whilst consuming food with alternative dining tools in an attempt to highlight interoceptive sensory perception.