{"id":592882,"date":"2026-08-14T09:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/592882\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:16:12","slug":"get-creative-the-art-of-hospitality-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/592882\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Creative: The Art of Hospitality"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a new series, acclaimed artist Jennie Moran<\/a> explores the road to developing a successful art practice.<\/p>\n

Jennie is a visual artist whose work explores hospitality as a creative and connective philosophy.<\/p>\n

In the final installment, Jennie of 2026 sits down with her 2013 self to reflect on the road travelled, the lessons learned, and what it really takes to build a creative life.<\/p>\n

JM 2026: Tell me when and why you started using food in your practice?<\/p>\n

JM 2013: Well, the first time I was still in art college, in my final year of my sculpture degree. I had an assessment with my tutors, and I had made a conceptual vending machine\u2026<\/p>\n

JM 2026: Hang on. You better say more about that.<\/p>\n

JM 2013: Well, the vending machine distributed homemade bread and soup but of course I was the one doing it. There was a coin operated element because I remember building a circuit. The metal coin completed the circuit which activated a light, which activated me, which resulted in soup and bread for the payee. I was trying to convert my art practice into a service; to deliver care but at a remove. I wanted it to feel sort of sad and tender, a bit like an institution with very measured moments of humanity.I was delivering care by way of food, but I didn’t want anyone looking too closely at me. The vending machine helped with this. I also found those assessments very cringy and enjoyed creating a diversion with the food.<\/p>\n

\"NA\"
\nJennie, then…<\/p>\n

JM 2026: You were trying to be an invisible host, but you won\u2019t use that vocabulary for another while yet. Why didn\u2019t you want anyone looking at you?<\/p>\n

JM 2013: Sometimes people giving care are hanging on by a thread. I was a young mother cobbling things together. I often had to appear stronger and more sure of everything than I really was. I saw something beautiful about offering care from a position of vulnerability, uncertainty, frailty. One wobbly human silently sharing a bit of bread with another.<\/p>\n

JM 2026: There is a line in a John Berger essay in response to, well – the meaning of our existence: “One was born into this life to share the time of Becoming, before Being risks to confront one yet again with undefeated despair.” (i)<\/p>\n

JM 2013: Yes! Exactly. I see food as way of holding people together imperfectly. To sit fleetingly in amongst all our collective insurmountable woes and just incorporate food \u2013 this is beautiful. Simple earthlings refuelling themselves. I think that these in-between moments might be the main moments. I was trying to keep language out of it. What is there to say anyway? I had no answers for anyone. Food is something you can put into people\u2019s mouths to stop words forming.<\/p>\n

\"NA\"
\nGoing bananas – Jennie and team in the kitchen at Luncheonette,
the caf\u00e9 she founded at NCAD<\/p>\n

JM 2026: So do you see food as a material?<\/p>\n

JM 2013: Perhaps something between a material and a decoy. I find it very powerful. When I use it in the context of art it really affects people’s behaviour.<\/p>\n

JM 2013: In what way?<\/p>\n

JM 2026: It gives people permission to be in a place. That\u2019s why I think of it as a decoy. I am always inevitably trying to connect people and with food that becomes quite easy. Well conceptually at least. Logistically and practically, it is a real handful.<\/p>\n

JM 2026: But isn\u2019t that what you wanted \u2013 to have your hands full? Remember you sitting miserably alone in your studio, embroidering like a melancholic Victorian? (ii)<\/p>\n

JM 2013: Yes I do remember that. I am currently in the process of moving everything from my studio to the semi-derelict basement of the college where I studied sculpture and fed my tutors with a conceptual vending machine to open a canteen and feed them all again. By some miracle they have given me the keys. I have never run a business before. I am not a chef. I have \u20ac1,500 in total to do it. Whether it is a material or a decoy, if I don\u2019t handle this food properly I could kill everyone. I have done so much food safety training that I can now train others. I have spent the summer in this underground hall sanding scaffolding planks to make tables. I have fashioned gentle lights that will glow just above the tables and make everyone look lovely so they can sit together happily. I am more excited than I have ever been about this. But very nervous. Suitably nervous.<\/p>\n

\"NA\"
\nJennie now…<\/p>\n

JM 2026: You are right to be nervous. You will be using food as a delivery system for care, but now it will be for 500 people a day. That amounts to 600,000 people over your time there. You will be visible in all your vulnerability, making it up as you go along. And that will be the very thing that people will recognise. They will all help you. You can\u2019t imagine how supported you\u2019ll be. In five years you will win an award for the best caf\u00e9 in Ireland. When they announce it, you\u2019ll be so confused that you refuse to get up. God though, you\u2019ll work hard. You\u2019ll hurt yourself, sometimes badly. You will put your heart and soul into this project and you will love it. You will learn a lifetime of things. When it is time to leave you will cry and cry and resist it. But you\u2019ll know it\u2019s right and you\u2019ll put all that beautiful knowledge to great use. You will dream about it often though and a surprising number of those 600,000 people will pop into your head.<\/p>\n

Jennie runs a module called Creative Hospitality in NCAD through the Creative Futures Academy, more info here<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more from the Get Creative series here<\/a><\/p>\n

NOTES:<\/p>\n

(i) John Berger, Hold Everything Dear<\/p>\n

(ii) See The Art of Hospitality No 1<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a new series, acclaimed artist Jennie Moran explores the road to developing a successful art practice. Jennie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-592882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}