My project, Dining Room, is a participatory installation that explores intergenerational, familial, and cultural trauma through symbolic action and community engagement. I invite participants to take part in a Shatter Party, a facilitated event in which ceramic dishes are broken, one by one, as an act of emotional release. These fragments—each a material trace of pain, grief, rage, or catharsis—are then gathered by me and used to construct the centerpiece of the final installation: a stylized domestic dining room, where the carpet is composed entirely of broken dishes, and the table is set with white plates long ago cracked and imperfectly repaired.
Casually viewed, the Dining Room appears unremarkable—a diorama of domesticity. But closer inspection reveals the underlying fractures. The viewer peers through a suspended window and sees herself reflected in a vintage mirror across the table, placing her inside the scene. This is not just one family’s table—it’s everyone’s.
What we share across backgrounds, cultures, and identities are the quiet wounds carried from our families of origin. For many of us, the dining table—an object associated with connection—is a site of pain, silence, and pressure. In today’s world, as we all carry the weight of daily overwhelm, social fragmentation, and collective grief, we’re expected to hold it together. But many of us feel like we’re going to shatter.
We are living through a time of profound social and political upheaval in the United States—a period marked by uncertainty, fear, and systemic breakdown. This project is my response. I want to offer a space where people can come together in their fragility—not to be fixed, but to be seen. Where we can rage, grieve, and release alongside others. Where we can access support and community. And where, from the fragments of our individual experiences, we build something shared.
This project is not about resolution. It’s about recognition. It’s about honoring the emotional truth we carry, and inviting moments of connection and compassion through visceral, creative acts. That’s my vision—and why I’m making this work now.
