At The Table is an ongoing series of events in collaboration with performance artists, musicians, dancers, philosophers and activists. These events bring together individuals to experience and explore performance, participation and food as a celebration of our basic needs: sustenance, shelter and connection to others. These events are an invitation to be present with each other, creatively exploring new ways of communication and exchange while fully embracing the possibility of failure. This project questions the sustainability of a social structure based on debt and individualistic “survival of the fittest.” With an awareness that individual and community health are inseparable, we undertake an experiment in social technology inspired by mycelial communication of needs and resources. 



Through mycelial behaviour, we're experimenting with a model of community exchange that responds to individuals as members of a collective ecosystem. We invite audience to co-create unfamiliar models of conversation to discover resilient and responsive new forms of social architecture. Through a series of prompts developed in response to the biological communication of the mycelial network, collaborators and conversation hosts will negotiate opportunities for exchange with participants. A graphic harvester will synthesize the ideas and group wisdom unearthed through the conversation in a visual manner on paper.



At The Table began in December of 2013 and has hosted two home events at artist's Lindsay Hopkins and Bryan Saner's homes. These events provided a platform for performance and sharing a meal together while experimenting with community building, skill shares and conversation. At The Table also recently co-hosted the 2nd annual Hygge Party with the Chicago Time Exchange at Links Hall in Spring 2015. The At The Table collective is a collaboration between Lindsay Hopkins, Mike Lahood, Jessie Marasa, Lara Oppenheimer, and Bryan Saner.