The Octopus Waffle Lab
A participatory installation by Void & Co.
​Open Source Gallery, New York (2020)

You are a dancing survivor.
Three hearts are beating in your boneless body.
Someone told me you make your ink out of the souls of dead sailors.
With your gentle, melancholy eyes you look at me,
and through them I spot a view of your home in the deep unseen.
Mesmerized by your transcendental grace
I want to be absorbed in your embrace,
which is like a force of love too strong for this world.
We could eat each other, simultaneously, in a cloud of ink
a black violet smokescreen concealing our pleasure.

The Octopus Waffle Lab is an invitation to collectively rethink our present perception of nourishment, considering the growing environmental challenges concerning nutrition.

Is the nourishment you need far from the kind that you want? When is something a powerful intuitive skill or just a bad habit? How do we differentiate between needs and desires? Have you ever eaten a word, a placebo, a memory or with your eyes closed? What is edible? How do we obtain the characteristics of what we eat?

Entering into The Octopus Waffle Lab, visitors are invited to join Void & Co. in a space for experimentation and conversation on how we obtain nourishment.

The exhibition explores food culture and -heritage, superstitions and emotional connections to food in a time where “what we eat shapes the future”.

​The exhibition is realised with the generous support of Open Source Gallery and its patrons, alongside Danish Art Workshops. Thank you!

The program at Open Source Gallery is supported, in part, by the Joseph Robert Foundation, the Albers Foundation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Open Source Gallery programming is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

www.open-source-gallery.org
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Void & Co. in The Octopus Waffle Lab. Photo: Anja Matthes
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Void & Co. performing The Octopus Waffle Lab at Open Source Gallery, New York, 2020
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The Octopus Waffle Wagon, 2020. Food cart, glasses, mixed ingredients, waffle makers, collection of 22 unique ceramic octopus plates made by Sabine Rosenstein
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The Octopus Waffle Mix, mixed ingredients in paper zip lock bags 160 g
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The Octopus Waffle Lab, 2020, at Open Source Gallery, New York.
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The Future Is What You Eat, X-rays no. 1-10, 2020. Black &White analog photogram on fiber-Based paper, each unique, 30,5 x 41,5 cm.
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The Octopus Waffle Flag no. 1-2, 2020. Photographic emulsion on fabric, 157,5 x 66 cm, 124,5 x 63,5 cm
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The Octopus Waffle Archive, 2020. Octopus waffles, mixed ingredients, archive cards
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Photos by: Anja Matthes, Stefan Hagen and Void & Co.
The Octopus Waffle Archive at Open Source Gallery (2020)
The Octopus Waffle Archive, 2020. Octopus waffles, mixed ingredients, archive cards. Photos: Stefan Hagen