Join us for a fancy dinner that won’t satisfy your cravings. Here’s what we saw at Bad Art’s fourth installation “Let Them Eat Fake” at London’s Bones and Pearl Studios.

Cheekily called the “lowest calorie dinner you’ll ever attend,” “Let Them Eat Fake” was a colossal, bougie dinner any avid food aficionado had always dreamt of – with the only exception that none of the dishes served were actually edible. The show was curated by Bad Art’s founder Anna Choutova, who invited a wide range of young and emerging artists to collaborate on the delicious menu – our fave Eden Mitsenmacher Tordjman was amongst the 29 names on the bill. The feast was kicked off by a lovely opening night on August 11 – and how did it go? 

The exhibition took place in Bones and Pearl Studios in North London, which are surrounded with workshops and factory buildings right next to the Walthamstow Reservoirs. I could hardly imagine a better place for an exhibition of such a small scale as one room. You could pick any space in the studios for a conversation, including a huge common area which had electric organs and several sofas (which oh-my-god were they the comfiest). Outside, there is a yard with all kinds of beautiful junk (broken piano, vintage mirrors, wired chairs, old rusty car front, you name it) which, thanks to the vivid lights and vibrant people, looked like a paradise in the evening.

“Let Them Eat Fake” was composed of a few big round tables, carefully set for a posh dinner party, all of them overflowing with food. Do you fancy marshmallows dipped in chocolate fountain, “bite me” candy in the size of a plate, capsules filled with stardust? Too bad, they are not edible. Did I personally mind? In spite of being a massive food fan, not at all. A DJ with vinyl records and a bar with free (drinkable) drinks made the private view event feel like a pleasant house party, even though after 9 PM all you could drink was kombucha or beer which tasted like liquorice. Well as far as I’m concerned, the expectation were surpassed: An exhibition that was a real dinner party and nobody seemed moody that they didn’t get what they expected.