Before Dinner is a print that explores the complex emotional landscape of anxiety, restlessness, and unease that arises before having dinner at home. This piece expresses my attempt to retreat to a safe zone in a chaotic world, only to realize that my safe zone has also become unsettling and anxiety-provoking because of interruption from my family, who are considered to be within the safe zone. The emotional journey moves from right to left, depicting a progression from intense restlessness to a more subtle but deep stress and anxiety.

Dinner is usually a family meal for me. People might usually enjoy having dinner at home because it is a time for them to relax. However, it is different for me. Everyone in my family should quickly drop what they are doing and go to the table when they hear my grandmother’s “dinner is ready”. I often feel very anxious before dinner, waiting for that “dinner” word. This anxiety makes my room less of a safe zone for myself and makes me lose control of my space. The sound of bowls clinking downstairs subtly penetrates the room, but I listen nervously, trying to tell where the food is at, and wait anxiously for that “dinner” to be served. Until this interruptive bowl sound intrudes, my room is my safe zone, a place where I can hide from the noise outside my window. But with the sound of the bowl, this last safety zone was shattered, and I had nowhere to go to quell my anxiety. Outside the window was now intense chaos, while inside was a sense of security that was gradually being eaten away by tinny voices.

I used the footprint as a symbol of chaotic streets outside, and bowls hanging with strings to mimic the crashes. On the left side, I use the black cardboard as background to show the dark environment of the evening, and diminishing white footprints to show the feeling of “people come, people go”. The central part is a wall. I made it into 3D to create a more immersive and realistic feeling of “a barrier between two scenes”, while the window on it creates a connection between the two scenes, allowing the audience to see through the window exactly as I do. On the left side, I printed the wooden floor in my room, which shows the warming and intimate atmosphere of my room. The bowls hanging up bump into each other when pushing, and the disturbing yellow strings in the middle gives the feeling of hearing the clinking sounds. In this way, I translated the audio soundscape into a visual representation.

Before Dinner includes both the real visual scene and abstract scene translated from audio to depict the dwindling safe space within. It expresses my personal thoughts and feelings of losing a sense of safety and increasing uneasiness by discussing interference and invasion of other's personal space by elders in Chinese families.