Breakfast Party (Virtual), 2020, video, 17 min

Breakfast Party (Virtual) is a month-long Instagram live performance art project that took place in September 2020 by Hanying Shi and Sophy Chang, two artists who graduated from the School of Visual Arts in NYC in 2019. Even though the pandemic brought these two artists apart from each other, they were able to still communicate through the internet. As the virus raged throughout the world with no sign of recovery in the near future, most people experienced what felt like an endless quarantine, craving for interaction with people in person. To get over this sense of disconnection, Hanying and Sophy performed a virtual breakfast party on Instagram, a Social Network Service (SNS) platform, where people, including their artist peers, could link to one another. 

Not only does this Instagram-based project reflect the situation at the time, but it also reveals how two artists lived in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic through the performance of the most basic of daily activities: cooking and eating. 

This live performance blurs the border between life and art. It took place at 9 AM in China and 10 AM in Korea every weekday of September 2020. They chose a recipe for each day and made breakfast together, reinforcing a sense of connection between the two artists in the process. Compared to lunch and dinner, breakfast can make for a more intimate moment because people don’t often officially showcase it to the public. Hanying and Sophy wish to share this cozy atmosphere with the internet, their artist friends, and the public so that they too can engage in the warmth of the artists’ shared bond.