Plane Food Cafe

Review by Evan Beswick | 19 Aug 2009

Downstairs, in the Freemason's Hall on George Street, lies a reconstructed segment of Boeing 747. There are, one suspects, odder artefacts in the basements of Freemason halls across the country but only this one has been constructed by installation artist Richard DeDomenici.

Inspired by an environmentally irresponsible comment from chef Marcus Wareing who, lamenting British cuisine, declared, "If you want a decent bite to eat, you'd be better off getting on a plane," DeDomenici gave up flying for 18 months. Seeking to put others off flying, he created Plane Food Cafe, serving up real airline food in an attempt to demonstrate that food tastes better on the ground, while at the same time associating plane food with "snarge" – the bloody residue left over from a mid-air bird strike.

If DeDomenici is seeking to put people off flying, Plane Food Cafe is an abject failure. But the tongue-in-cheek style suggests that's not really what this is about: DeDominici's presentation is thoroughly casual, if not a little shambolic; his assistant, Trish, smiles chirpily, perhaps even a little saucily; wine is dispensed from a lifejacket; a jazzy version of Bernstein's 'Jet song' plays throughout. This is no environmental lecture. Al Gore might not approve.

This isn't going to change the way we see air travel; it isn't going to change the art world. But the beauty of good art is that it's unconstrained by the artist's intentions. What DeDomenici has created is a thoroughly eccentric space which gleefully craps on the line between exhibition, performance and politics. Besides, the meatballs weren't bad at all.