Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

May 1, 2020

People are finding all sorts of creative ways to entertain themselves during lockdown. One Crediton family, missing the contact with family and friends, decided to make their own dinner guest. Here Fiona MacBeth explains where the idea came from, how they funded and then filmed their project.

Years ago, caring for our small children during a week of rainy weather, we spent a day making a papier-maché, cardboard and wire person whom we called Sue. She stayed in our family for years; mostly propped up against the wall in the kitchen but also, as we fondly remember, sometimes placed secretly into a bed or behind a door; it worked every time. After a period of retreat in the garden shed, Sue was recycled at Punch Bowl Tip and, until recently, we’d barely given her another thought.

There are five in our family and four of us are at home in Crediton for the duration of lockdown. When we spotted an Exeter Arts and Culture Hyperlocal callout we thought, yes, let’s apply…why not?

The callout was for artists working in any discipline to ‘explore the hyperlocal of their immediate domestic environment’. Our artistic skills as a family include visual art, dance, theatre and photography. Yes, we can make something together in the confines of our home, surely? Our past shared times playing - making home movies, inventing games, building things – will come in useful.

Mealtimes were hijacked as we tossed out ideas; poetic shadow images, deep meditations on the meaning of ‘lockdown life’, sensitive meaning-making out of distance and closeness. Zo, aged 17, began to yawn. ‘I just want to make another Sue.’

With no friends or visitors coming into the home, we are thrown back onto our family rituals and resources to manifest the company we crave. Just as Tom Hanks finds company in a football in Castaway, we can find company in somebody we make. Our project idea had landed! We made our submission and waited to hear.

It was wonderful, uplifting news when we were told it had been chosen as one of the 10 Hyperlocal project commissions.

….family collaboration is on…..

‍

We spent a whole day sawing, stapling, nailing, scrunching, tying, gluing, painting. Using an iPhone, we filmed the process. Crediton is quiet at the moment, barely any neighbours around as we hammered and sawed on our driveway. On a usual Sunday we would probably be off doing separate things, and our older children wouldn’t be living here. Time slowed down as we worked together and enjoyed sharing roles and tasks with more equality. The children have graduated from holding out the nails to holding the camera and directing the shots.

A puff pastry pie was prepared, the table was laid, we sat and waited for the doorbell to ring and announce the arrival of our guest.

It’s normal for us to sit together for dinner, but there’s something uncanny about this new guest….

Bobby the dog was agitated before Stacey appeared, but during the evening barely left his spot sitting on her foot. It’s a sign of love when he does that, or so we thought. Does he really love a cardboard stuffed boot on a chicken wire and wood body?

Stacey looked mighty fine. All dressed up, and ready for a glass of wine. Conversation flowed as we basked in the gaze of a stranger.