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Soft Service
A ceramics cafe
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 experience of visitors is similarly transformed through a mobile station which circulates the ceramic pieces (put into use) for display and dining. During open hours the mobile station allows visitors to order and receive their food while simulteanously “browsing” the Rosenfield collection.
The curation of the works in relation to one another can be semi-random, determined by the order of visitors orders, or presents an opportunity for a curator to “program” the conveyor belt. 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, and also alludes to the iterative process of ceramic making itself. Consider, for example, 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 offers an opportunity to present this seriality of making through a seriality of viewing, producing a mobile still life.
V.
SOFT
service
A Ceramics
Cafe
SOFT SURFACES
The project uses soft seating and dining furniture constructed of playground rubber and insulation foam to minimize the hazardous collision of ceramics and hard surfaces, while infusing the cafe with the inviting and warm atmosphere of playscapes.
SOFT SERVICE
PROJECT TYPE
Cafe & Gallery
STATUS
Competition Entry, 2019
LOCATION
Syracuse, NY
IN COLLABORATION WITH
Alex Reed
CLIENT
Everson Art Museum
Syracuse University
TEAM
Jia Gu
Maxi Spina
Nancy Ai