Surviving at the Table
📅 18 Apr 2026, 14:30 - 16:30
📍 Copeland Gallery, London SE15 3SN
💬 Mandarin
This is a card-based, role-playing game that focuses on the history of Wenzhou migrants in the Netherlands and their restaurant businesses from the 1950s to the present. Players assume the roles of Wenzhou migrants who arrived in the Netherlands in different historical periods. Under specific historical conditions, they must run a restaurant while confronting real-world challenges such as visa regimes, labour policies, consumer preferences, and cultural prejudice. Through a series of events and choices, players experience how migrants use food as a tool for survival, navigating difficult decisions at the intersection of identity, cultural representation, and market logic. As a transitional generation situated between early Cantonese migrants and today’s more diverse Chinese migrant communities, Wenzhou migrants have been deeply involved in the transformation of Europe’s restaurant industry and social landscape. Their experiences reflect the past of certain groups while foreshadowing the futures of others. In this sense, the game can be understood as an invitation to reflect on and discuss the broader conditions of Chinese migration.
*The project is commissioned by @Hong Museum in Wenzhou (CN), as one of the public education programmes for its latest exhibition “DIGESTIVE ETHICS” in 2026, curated by Michael Guo and Kechun Qin (@te.editions). *Execution support provided by @To Be Cooked for this session.
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About the facilitator:
Ziyi Lian, social designer and independent researcher. Member of culinary culture research and design collective To Be Cooked. Graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven (NL), she is currently based in China and the Netherlands. Her practice lies at the intersection of community, food, public space and civilian culture. She works to explore hidden and alternative narratives, while creating space for reflection and social intervention through situated, participatory and low-tech means.
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Outland Publishing Fair 2026
📍Copeland Gallery, London SE15 3SN
📅 17 Apr (Fri) 14:00-19:00 18 Apr (Sat) —19 Apr (Sun) 11:00 - 18:00