Los Angeles Eats Itself is an experience based event series that I created in 2013 that merges culinary arts, visual arts and product design in an event centered around one infamous moment in Los Angeles’ history. I am the lead creative director of the ten part series which means I choose the participating artist(s) and chef(s) who will collaborate during each meal as well as over see the staging of the venue and the site specific installations. Additionally I play a direct part in the design and production of key elements such as an edition of products, food concepts and how the sequence of the event eventually unfolds.

Working with Artist Julie Orser and Chef Jonathan Moulton of the Block and Wheel underground dinner series, I produced a meal centered around the infamous murder of Elizabeth Short, titled Black Dahlia Dinner.  My central contribution was in the experiential design of the meal's core concept that merged the P.O.V. first person of video game design with an IRL meal. The menu itself was curated in such a way so that all the participants could hypothetically occupy Elizabeth Short's last night on Sunset Blvd before her eventual disappearance.

The meal's concept was to create a menu that may have mimicked a typical night of an escort in the 1940s. Meeting different men at cafes along Sunset Blvd, the premise of the meal was to experience an out of sequence meal throughout the night. What Elizabeth most likely would have possibly eaten was less a full meal with courses but a smattering of dishes which had little to do with each other, both in order and ingredients. The menu itself had no names of dishes, but only street locations of restaurants where she could hypothetically meet her suitors.