The title of the exhibition is borrowed from Fotini Gouseti’s on-going project, which is inspired by a custom found in areas of Macedonia, where a dinner set is a very typical wedding present. Newly married couples end up with many more dinner sets than they could ever possibly use. They keep what they need, exchange some at shops, and keep the rest in order to offer them as wedding presents at some other wedding. As a result ‘the least wanted dinner sets’ travel endlessly.
During the course of the exhibition the public is warmly invited to contribute to this project by donating their least wanted dinner set in order for it to travel.
It is up to them to decide what a less wanted dinner set could be. Maybe one that was offered to them but they don't like and don't want to use? Maybe a dinner set that is not in fashion? A very cheap one? One in bad condition? Maybe one that is "too much"? Or...
Gousetiis very interested in the story behind this ‘least wanted item’ as
well; therefore she invites the visitors to contribute their stories and explanations!
Taking the traveling of the dinner sets as a starting point the exhibition questions mobility, relocation, diaspora, while examining the reasons leading to this being social, religious, economic. In the context of the exhibition mobility is examined in relation to spatial movement of humans and objects. Thus it brings together some of the purely ʻsocialʼ concerns such as inequality, power, hierarchies, with the ʻspatialʼ concerns of geography such as territory, borders, scale and the ʻculturalʼ concerns of anthropology and media studies such as discourses and representations while inflecting each with a relational ontology of the constitution of subjects, spaces and meanings.
In between cultural geography, transport geography and the anthropology of circulation, although different in scope, focus and methodology, Alter, Bratu and Gousetiʼs projects deliver a poetic reflection confronting the myths and experiences of their subjects while posing questions with a critical eye.