Kyla Paolucci
Table Talk:
Designing for a Tastier Future
I come from the land of eggplant parmigiana, otherwise known as North Providence, Rhode Island. My background is not extraordinary, although it is the source material for a lot of good TV shows. Raised by an ensemble cast of charismatic Italian American Catholics, I have a penchant for storytelling, home cooking, and saucy attitudes. In a relatively homogeneous environment, moms argue over how much mozzarella you should not be using, guarding themselves against too much difference for the sake of being palatable to other Americans. Instead of strictly adhering to our ancestral recipes, I believe we can adapt them to better suit our modern tastes.
As a ritual site where family and friends come together to share a meal and talk about life beyond dessert and coffee, Table Talk is where I discover who I am, how I contradict myself, and what I need to become a designer with a heightened sense of agency. In this collection of standalone zines, dinner conversation and family recipes act as metaphors for how community sourcing and relational design methods can create new possibilities, rather than eating the same meal week after week. By actively engaging multiplicity through both individual and group making, I want to find the more expansive parts of ourselves that can nourish the world we live in by making it a bowl of pasta.
Kyla is a graphic designer and educator who lives and works in New York City. In addition to hosting coworking days and dinner parties, she’s often exploring the abundance of artisan bakeries throughout the boroughs.
