Ayako Suwa Brings her Food Creations to Singapore

If you have a sense of curiosity and adventure, with no qualms about trying something different, Ayako Suwa wants you as a guest at her Guerilla Restaurant.

Trained as a visual artist, Suwa has been expressing her artistic flair with food for the past five years, from creating installations to hosting meals in pop-up venues she calls ‘Guerilla Restaurants'. Having taken her concepts to destinations like Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong, Suwa has landed in Singapore for a collaboration with TripleOne Somerset in conjunction with the Great Singapore Sale.

There are two parts to this: an art installation at the mall's atrium and dinners at the Guerilla Restaurant. The installation features 111 food art pieces that have been created out of ingredients sourced by Suwa in our local markets, and each represents a specific feeling. Take the particular piece (pictured above) for instance. She has named this ‘shyness', and is made from a dried flower dipped in chili powder, and contains a sea horse within, its tail peeking out ever so slightly. The touch of red is representative of the artist's proclivity for the colour, which she confesses to love incorporating into her art.

The black-tie dinners kick off with an invitation-only opening night on June 23, followed by ticketed dinners the next two nights (proceeds will be donated to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund). They will seat 111 guests per night, and allow guests to experience Suwa's brand of art on a more intimate level. "I'm not a chef and it's not meant to be gourmet, but rather a suggestion of another way to experience food," she says of her food creations, which can range from the pleasant to the peculiar. Taste is subjective, so it isn't beyond her to serve something that she doesn't personally fancy. It is after all tied to her ultimate objective as a food artist - to incite feelings in a person, be it good or bad. Besides using sourced ingredients, she also has a range of ‘emotional essences', which she developed with Fukumitsuya Sake Brewery in Japan. With names like ‘taste of anger' and ‘taste of heartrending sorrow', each essence has a distinct smell and flavour, intended to be added to food or drinks to alter their taste and hence evoke different emotions.

So why not stir up emotions in an audience through other forms such as paintings or sculptures? Why food? "Compared to paintings or even music, with food, you're using all five senses - your eyes to look; nose to smell; tongue to taste; touch to feel the texture; and ears to listen to the sound of something crunchy. You can't eat paintings, while the food goes into your body. It's a full experience," says Suwa.

Indeed, it may not be for everyone, but if you're at all curious, come with an open mind and you'll be in for an experience that will be, at the very least, out of the ordinary.

Tickets for Ayako Suwa's Guerilla Restaurant are priced at S$85.60 (inclusive of GST), and are available at all Sistic counters and at www.sistic.com.sg. Proceeds will be donated to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund. Shoppers can also stand a chance to win invitations to the opening night, with any purchase at TripleOne Somerset made before June 23. For enquiries, call TripleOne Somerset's concierge at 6735 8574