Soft Service is a cafe proposal for the Rosenfield Collection, a newly acquired functional ceramics collection that brings together dining and display developed at the invitation of the Everson Art Museum and Syracuse University. Soft Service blends the encyclopedic tendencies of museological displays with the dining and display habits of kaiten sushi, offering cafe visitors an opportunity to participate in the curation and presentation of the ceramic collection.
In kaiten sushi, the sensuousness of raw sushi is put on display and into service through its constant rotation between the restaurant and the kitchen, transforming dining into a creative and social act. In our proposal, the labor of curation is similarly transformed through a mobile station which circulates the ceramic pieces (put into use) for display and dining. The mobile station allows visitors to order and receive their food while simulteanously “browsing” the Rosenfield collection. In this case, the work of the curator is to “program” the conveyor belt.

The curation of the works in relation to one another is by chance, determined by the order of visitors. The rotation of the ceramic pieces allows the vibrant colors, textures, forms and silhouettes to circulate through the cafe in serial presentation. This seriality of forms harkens to the long history of precedent studies that form the core of a potter’s education, such as Phillip Rawson’s taxonomic chart of ceramic forms on the front cover of his classic tome Ceramics, where an original form (a bowl or cylinder) is crafted into an infinite field of formal shapes via deft hands. The mobile station alludes to the iterative process of ceramic making itself through a seriality of viewing, producing a mobile still life.

In collaboration with Alex Reed.

V.
SOFT
service
A Ceramics
Cafe

SOFT SERVICE

PROJECT TYPE
Cafe & Gallery

STATUS
Competition Entry, 2019

LOCATION
Syracuse, NY

CLIENT
Everson Art Museum
Syracuse University

TEAM
Jia Gu
Maxi Spina
Nancy Ai