A walk and shared picnic lunch exploring connections between food, body and place.

“Crossings was a lunch experience for 90 guests commissioned by the National Trust, designed and produced in collaboration with artist Natasha Rosling. The project formed a part of one-day symposium Place, Practice, Purpose, investigating place-based contemporary arts.

Guests were divided into three groups: Garden, Pond and Valley. After having been introduced to the project through a poetic 'menu card', each group was led on a walk into the chosen landscape, carrying with them a lunch made with site-specific ingredients such as foraged leaves and herbs, garden vegetables and duck eggs from a local farmer. The picnic was all prepared by us and packed in bespoke bundles made by hand with natural materials such as cotton, beeswax and wood. 

Once guests had immersed themselves in the landscape and found a place to sit down, they worked together to open up the bundles, explore and enjoy the contents. By letting people carry and serve the picnic themselves, our intention was to inspire a sense of care for the food as well as each other, and to reflect on the connections between our bodies, what we eat and the surrounding landscape.”