Serena Viola Corson

Hosting is the Highest Form of Art — A Manifesto

 

 

It is my pleasure to embrace the art of hosting—

the art of care-work, 

the art of setting a beautiful tablescape and making food for my guests. 

This work has been dubbed “feminine” or “women’s work,” 

and thus, is seen as frivolous under patriarchy. 

But as we dine together this evening, 

and the transformative energy and collective experience unravels, 

we honor the so-called “feminine” arts. 

We know the prioritization of gathering is sacred. 

We embrace the ephemeral, the sensual and the erotic (in the Audre Lorde sense of the word, meaning to move through the world poetically and intentionally). 

We know that everyone who participates openly and peacefully is an artist, collaborator, and feminist. 

As art and life are inseparable — we experience this gathering as both.

Tonight, the gallery becomes activated; the white cube comes alive in celebration. Celebration in the ancient Dionysian, bacchanalian sense, which is—

the instinctual, the irrational, the wild, the tendency towards chaos and the loss of individuality; it is the appreciation of all that binds us to nature and Earth.

It’s about shedding propriety, embracing the absurd 

and knowing we all deserve pleasure and joy. 

I highly suggest keeping your phone tucked away in this box, 

only using it quickly for artistic documentation. 

I will come around to collect them. 

We despise and denounce the smartphone’s intentionally addictive programming. 

Under a system that puts profit before living beings and actively isolates and divides us, we reclaim socialization as social animals!

We promise to practice vulnerability, active listening, curiosity, sharing, kindness and compassion. 

So, let us feast and drink and pray, because life is mysterious. 

Let us accept and acknowledge all that we don’t know 

and all that we can’t control or foresee. 

This is not to be confused with all we *can* change, and with that, our unity and collective action is key. 

Now raise your glasses for a toast. 

Thank you Universe, Mother Earth, Dionysus and thank you all so much for being here, now let us eat. 

Cheers!​​

 

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These happenings transform the labor of care and hosting, often dismissed as “women’s work” into a site of radical hospitality and resistance to individualist culture and the loneliness epidemic. Each gathering becomes a living artwork: an ephemeral collective experience built through the unique energies and conversation of the evening. I pay close attention to aesthetic and sensory detail: foraging bouquets, lighting candles, cooking food you can smell, decorating with attention to color palette and theme. I focus on the sensual to slow us down and bring everyone into our shared present moment. In the spirit of Dionysus, we feast and drink to celebrate pleasure, relationality, being alive, and the mysteries of the universe. ​

The title of these performances, "Hosting is the Highest Form of Art", references Tom Marioni’s famous series of performances from the 1970’s titled "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art," a social art piece where the artist had people over to his San Francisco studio to drink beer every week for 45 years. I see both his and my own performance work as challenging the boundaries of traditional art-making by using everyday life as the medium.