Hello Stranger

The “Hello Stranger” project (previously Everybody Eats Lunch) project paired 30 East Bay residents together for a one-on-one meal and conversation, with lunches donated by local restaurants.  In a time when everyday conversations can feel difficult, this project brought closely proximated neighbors together on an intentionally simple algorithm: food. 

If you requested Macaroni for lunch, for example, you got paired with someone else who also said Macaroni.  That didn’t mean Macoroni was served for lunch, just that the two people could expect to haver food in common.

For the exhibition, the walls were covered with 220 posters, each representing a phrase mentioned by one of the 32 lunch participants during their lunch. The posters read from left to right, representing the general timeline of the lunches. For example, the first twenty posters represent various "hello’s.”  The middle 70 posters represent the middle portions of conversations, as strangers chose to go deeper or not. The last part of the wall represent the various ways people said their goodbyes.

The overall effect is a mix tape of both missed and made connections.

“Hello Stranger” was an analog experiment that place un-ironically in the Bay Area, the birthplace of social media and digital conversations.  Prior to taking place in the San Pablo corridor, the program took place at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. For information on both programs, visit www.everybodyeatslunch.com