tray

2022

The small zine centering on the daily cycle of a lunch tray at a university cafeteria is an investigation into spaces of labor demarcated within singular envelopes of architecture. The narrative follows the tray across the dining halls into the dishroom, rendering agents interacting with it illegible in so far as their modes of enacting onto the tray, eating, discarding and cleaning, caring.

As cafeteria goers are prevented from crossing the boundary into the dishroom while the tray is allowed to do so, the object becomes a bridge of care and comfort economies unfolding, hidden by boundaries enacted through architectural design.

Copies of the zine were left around dish conveyor belts across MIT cafeterias.