Shako Club

May – July, 2015
Community Project, Gathering/Meal/Social, Artist editions

About the Program

Curated by Vanessa Kwan as part of the grunt gallery’s 30th anniversary programming, Shako Club (or social club) is a community-engaged project initiated by grunt gallery and artist Cindy Mochizuki, and created in collaboration with members of Tonari Gumi (Vancouver’s Japanese Community Volunteers Association)—an association serving primarily Japanese Canadian seniors and new immigrants to Canada. With a signature investment in both collaborative and improvisational energies, Mochizuki spent 3 months in residence at Tonari Gumi, working in their commercial kitchen to create recipes and culinary sculptures that acknowledge equally the influence of cultural background, history, taste, aesthetic value, and an abiding love of snacks.

Through an ongoing series of workshops and taste experiments, Mochizuki and Tonari Gumi members will craft interpretations of the bento box (a traditional Japanese meal set containing a selection of small dishes) that combine culinary and sculptural sensibilities with stories, memories and advice, selected with care. Mochizuki documented the workshops and processes through a series of drawings and recipes available online, and the work culminated in the gifted distribution of custom-made, edible bento “editions” to 60 members of the public based on their answers from a questionnaire that was available online.

Curator

Vanessa Kwan

Artist

Cindy Mochizuki

Partner

Tonari Gumi

Identifier

2015.0501 SHA

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive

Related program

Shako Cup (Related)

Location

Tonari Gumi (Japanese Community Volunteers Association)
101-42 W. 8th Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5Y 1M7
Unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), səlilwətaɬ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Nations
​​In copyright. For uses beyond Fair Dealing, research requests, corrections, takedown requests, or other inquiries, please contact grunt gallery: archives@grunt.ca