1 September - 8 October 2022

Banquet is an exhibition that re-imagines the Tin Sheds Gallery as an interactive banquet hall. Referencing Roman Emperor Nero Germanicus’ Golden Banquet Room - the gallery is transformed into a spatial laboratory exploring food processes and the human condition. Fictional moments in film and literature are re-animated through seven handcrafted analogue ‘food machines’, accompanied by architectural drawings.

These food machines are stationed throughout the gallery, responding to the various courses of a degustation constructed through architectural means. Scenes from films such as Wes Anderson’s ‘Grandbudapest Hotel’, an adaptation of George Orwell’s ‘1984’, and Studio Ghibli’s ‘Spirited Away’ come to life through the machines. Designed to perform an architecture of food production, one makes a continuous stream of Hors d’oeuvres on a conveyor belt alongside a floating architectural wall, another dispenses dog treats, while another registers the passing of time in coffee production, passing granules through an hourglass allowing the residue to leave marks on paper. The hum of analogue machines in operation creates a soundtrack for the exhibition.

Banquet was conceived during the pandemic lockdowns of the last two years where the connection between food and wellbeing, especially in a gastronomic city like Sydney was at the forefront of our daily existence. For many it was a time to engage with the joys of food production in the home, while the absence of a collective dining experience left its mark on social interaction. Banquet is an invitation back into an immersive dining assemblage. 

Exhibitors: Marissa Lindquist and Michael Chapman with Imogen Sage, Robyn Schmidt, Timothy Burke, Peter Fisher,  Derren Lowe

Assistants:   Jackson Voorby, Lexi Le Owen, James Dwyer, Aaron Crowe, Na Li, Guiherme Nettoalvesdosreis, Simon Hewitt, Paul Ridings

Banquet Wine Tasting (brought to you by Vinden Wines)

Saturday 8 October 3-5pm

Venue: Tin Sheds Gallery, 148 City Rd, Darlington, NSW

We invite you to our wine tasting soiree at Tin Sheds Gallery to explore the sensory delights of body, nose and palate. Eight carefully crafted wines will be paired with a degustation of Banquet's transhistorical architectural food machines for your pleasure. 

The Last Octopus Tentacle

Performance by Imogen Sage and Ayesha Tansey

Thursday 1 September 7 - 7:30 pm

What happens when the last octopus tentacle has been eaten, and all that is left is the fantasy of consumption? Streamed from the Tin Sheds Gallery this immersive broadcasted experience examines the scarcity and excess of eating. Violence, perversion and hedonism in 2022.

Gallery Tour

3rd of September 1-2pm

Venue: Tin Sheds Gallery, 148 City Rd, Darlington, NSW

Tour Tin Shed Gallery with the exhibitors, Michael Chapman and Marissa Lindquist, to discover the artworks, artists and their hidden stories in Banquet exhibition.

Family Workshop: Food Fights 

Saturday 17 September 12–2pm 

Venue: Tin Sheds Gallery, 148 City Rd, Darlington, NSW

Food Fights is an interactive drawing workshop for kids, run by Timothy Burke and Marissa Lindquist. The workshop introduces kids to creative processes of drawing around food and engages them with the different elements of the Banquet exhibition through activities that produce performative drawings from domestic cooking utensils.

Performance lecture: Digestive Tracts 

Wednesday 21 September 6–7.30pm 

Venue: Tin Sheds Gallery, 148 City Rd, Darlington, NSW

Digestive Tracks is a gallery talk by Marissa Lindquist, Michael Chapman, Timothy Burke, Derren Lowe, Imogen Sage and Robyn Schmidt explaining the conceptual development of the banquet work, the process and the source material. It will take place in the gallery and work through each of the stations of the exhibition and its operation, interspersed with drawing, animation, process and performance around the work.

All photography by Baja Maska 2022

Tin Sheds Gallery acknowledges the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, upon whose ancestral lands our exhibitions take place. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge of these lands, waterways and Country.