The Tables Between Us

A doubling of form unsettling the familiar order.

The rug beneath invites community in a circle, softening the ground into a space of intentional gathering, dissolving the edges of hierarchy. The rug above drapes the table, transforming the surface into tapestry, pattern into stage, food into ornaments and ritual.

Together, they collapse the distance between ground and table, object and offering. What is underfoot rises; what is hidden is revealed. The table is disrupted—reimagined not as boundary, but as continuum.

This installation rethinks the place of the rug in relation to dining. Traditionally, the rug lies beneath the table, hidden under furniture, its presence often overlooked. Here, it takes on a doubled role: the rug on the ground becomes an open invitation to gather, echoing ancient traditions of sitting close to the earth, eating together without hierarchy. At the same time, the rug draped over the table transforms into a surface of design, turning food into part of a visual composition, where patterns frame the act of sharing a meal.

By positioning rugs both below and above, they collapse the familiar order of dining. The rug is no longer background, but host; no longer merely underfoot, but central to the table itself. In doing so, we disrupt expectations of where a rug belongs, and by extension, what the table means. The installation asks us to reconsider the rituals of gathering, the systems of hierarchy embedded in them, and how design can become a bridge between gathering, storytelling, and survival.

Multiple tables with different rugs around the space will be displayed while giving visitors a tour and storytelling experience. Visitors will also participate in interactive activations like weaving at a loom and hand tufting.