"In moments when we are asked to be fast, reactive, and always legible – this series offers an insistence on slowness, born from a desire not to be packagable or correct. I loved thinking about a return to longform with TANK Magazine for their new series, My Dinner with Sumayya.
The series began, loosely, as a reflection on the film My Dinner with Andre and its portrayal of the unhurried unfolding of thoughts across a shared meal. These are not interviews. There are no scripts. Just a table, a guest, and a conversation that moves, sometimes sideways, sometimes deep.
As an architect, my work is often about shaping space. But here, I am thinking about how space is shaped by presence; by listening, by trust, by intimacy. Some of the guests are longtime friends, others are people whose work I’ve long admired from afar. Each one leaves me changed. I offer these to you as invitations to imagine worlds from these overheard fragments.
Welcome to the table.
In the series premiere, I sat down with my friend and sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan to discuss his genre-defying politics of listening, the influences that shaped his practice, and the monumental work he’s doing with Eatrshot, which he founded.
Lawrence reminds me that listening, real listening, is a political act. And maybe that’s what I love most about him; that he’s never stopped listening, even to the people who are hardest to hear."
Watch the full conversation on the TANK Magazine website.
