This program plan was co-written by myself and Estefany Encalada for MSL1350: Museums and Their Publics.
Overview
British high tea is a setting for the upper class, which is seen as a pristine and exclusive event. The concept of disrupting this tea time is the idea of gathering those who are do not have access to or feel unwelcome to attend, and serving a variety of international dishes that are not the typical British high tea menu one would anticipate. The history of tea time is connected to many colonial atrocities the British empire was a part of, from the tea drank to the sugar poured in. This program will have educators discussing with those in attendance what those issues are and how we can break colonial barriers through outreach programs like this. Location: Gardiner Museum The Disrupt Tea Time event will take place at the Clay Restaurant inside the Gardiner Museum in downtown Toronto, Ontario. The Gardiner Museum is known for their ceramics and pottery, such as tea sets of British and European origin. Mission Statement “We engage audiences with exhibitions, programs, and hands-on classes, while stewarding a significant permanent collection. We interpret historical ceramics to emphasize their relevance today, and champion emerging and established Canadian artists and their role in the broader world. We innovate through clay education, as it brings together the experience of making with a deeper understanding of the art of ceramics.” Set-Up The event will run biweekly over the three summer months. There will be a total of 140 guests at each Disrupt Tea Time event, with fourteen tables consisting of ten guests at each, this will allow families to sit together and others to meet new guests and engage in conversation. The tea sets will come from a mixture of new and old, with diverse artists being commissioned by the museum to make seventy tea sets and seventy tea sets to be thrifted secondhand. The sets will be distributed at each table, consisting of half commissioned items and half thrifted items so that there is a blend of both new and old at each table.
Seven artists will each make a set of ten cups, saucers, eating plates, and two teapots, resulting in seventy sets, totaling 224 pieces
Thrift seventy sets of cups, saucers, and eating plates to serve remaining guests
Plus, an additional number of spares as things break
The commissioned artists will include local artist with an emphasis in including Indigenous artists. After the end of the program, the artists will make ceramic sculptures or mosaics out of any ceramics broken by use during the event (plus some intentionally broken pieces as needed).
Audience
Families
Involving children in the space they are not usually invited into
Community space for a range of ages
Lower income groups
Pair with local libraries, foodbanks, or community centers to hand out some discounted/free tickets
Members of tea societies
Historical reenactors
Culinary Historians of Canada
Audience Justification
Our priority with Disrupt Tea Time is to be as broadly inviting as possible which can make it more complicated to define an audience. One important aspect of our target audiences is that they are primarily local. While Disrupt Tea Time will be open to tourists, its repeated and pre-booked nature makes it especially effective for local Toronto residents looking for a fun event to attend with friends or family.
To help narrow focus we selected three primary groups to reach. Firstly, we want to welcome families, including children, to make the space suitable for all ages and involve children in the museum in fun and engaging ways from a young age. Our choice to use any broken pieces in sculpture at the end is intended to help these groups feel move comfortable since children are likely to break delicate objects such as ceramics. Including family groups opens the door to intergenerational discussions which can deepen the understanding of all members. A parent placed in a situation of learning with their child can take on a teaching role that helps them to better retain information. Having family groups will also help create the cozy, dinner party energy we are hoping to bring to tea time. To that end, we also refer to attendees as guests throughout our program plan. While the phrase “guest” can be seen as placing museum goers outside of the museum space and positioning them as intruders, we are hoping to use the term’s meaning in the sense of house guests. A guest is someone who comes from outside and is welcomed within a space. Notions of hospitality are key to tea time across history. Tea serving ceremonies are often important rituals of greeting and have been used in political and trade negotiations for this reason.
Another key audience for this exhibit is lower income Torontonians. Historically, museums have been seen as exclusive spaces for the bourgeois class with disposable income. While contemporary museums are trying to be more welcoming, these powerful assumptions still hold sway in the public’s mind. To this end, Disrupt Tea Time will have several discounted or free tickets available to those in need, perhaps through a similar system to Toronto Public Library’s MAP Pass. The additional draw of food alongside educational program can also help reach community members who have limited free time due to demanding work schedules or family responsibilities.
Finally, we hope that Disrupt Tea time appeals to members of the public who are already interested in historical tea services. (For example, those with membership in tea societies, historical reenactors, members of Culinary Historians of Canada, etc.) Our emphasis on this group is twofold. Firstly, these are existing groups with members interested in tea and historic food ways, making them a natural audience for this program. Secondly, these are groups who may be upholding traditional elitist views of tea time (knowingly or unknowingly) and so reaching out to them and changing their preconceived notions can have far-reaching impact in how they engage with their own tea time events.
Accessibility
In addition to reducing financial access barriers, physical and intellectual accessibility have been taken into consideration.
Our menu includes a variety of food options in line with common dietary restrictions such as halal, vegetarian, and gluten free. Prebooking with ticketed attendance also allows us to ask guests for dietary and other accommodation needs (e.g., arrange a peanut-free week to accommodate severe allergy). When hiring interpreters for this event we will seek out multilingual interpreters (particularly those fluent in Mandarin and Punjabi as the most common non-official languages spoken in Canada and sign language for the D/deaf and Hard of Hearing). Physically, the Gardiner Museums is fully wheelchair accessible. Intellectually, we hope to create programming which uses simple language and accompanied by interpreters who can further clarify any confusion.
Program Plan
Run of show
Time | Activity | Interpretation |
3:00pm | Guests arrive | Situate and orient guests in space |
3:30 | Sit at table | Guests prebook seats as a group, table can have multiple groups, each table has one interpreter |
3:40 | Order food | Interpreter walks guests through the menu contents including notes on places of origin |
4:00 | Wait for food/presentation | Video of artists making the art and pottery while they discuss their views on colonial ideas of tea |
4:20 | Eat | Guests can eat and have opportunity to ask interpreters questions |
5:30 | Wrap Up | |
Use of Ceramics
Commission contemporary artists to make tea sets for the event
Involves local artists in process and can help invite them as co-creators
Supports museum collection as remaining pieces can be kept and displayed at the end of the event
Thrift remaining crockery as needed
Saves on budget
Promotes sustainability and reduces waste
Use any broken pottery to make new ceramic art pieces
This allows people to feel more comfortable using the items and allows us to be move open to having children attend
Promotes sustainability and reduces waste
Industry and Colonialism
Many key items used in tea time (particularly tea, sugar, coffee, and chocolate) have roots in colonialism and it is important for us to identify them as well as to connect them to the harms still being caused today in pursuit of these luxury goods. The Gardiner Museum has already begun some of this work within its “European Porcelain of the 18th & Early 19th Centuries” gallery which includes text panels discussing the sugar trades connection to colonialism and the slave trade.
In order to further put to practice what we preach, wherever possible Disrupt Tea Time will serve fair trade foods and source locally. This commitment to sustainability and human dignity is fundamental to any programming which seeks to meaningfully engage with its guests about colonialism and work towards decolonial futures.
Menu
Drinks
Hot tea (from variety of nations: Chai, matcha tea, green tea, herbal tea)
Coffee (sourced ethically, free trade, blends form different nations)
Iced tea (bubble tea, iced variations of hot teas)
Mate (South American drink that originates from Indigenous culture)
Hot chocolate (ethically sourced chocolate; e.g., Camino hot chocolate, Tonys Chocolonely, this list)
Food
Vegan, gluten free, allergy options
Halal Shawarma Pinwheels with tahini and garlic sauce (middle eastern halal dish)
Jerk chicken and plantains sandwich (Caribbean inspired sandwich)
Vegan chickpea curry with naan (Indian vegan/vegetarian dish)
Collaborate with Dashmaawaan Bemaadzinjin for Indigenous food options
Charcuterie board:
Smoked fish & game meat platter for a special celebration Includes: Smoked sturgeon, Smoked Lake trout, smoked pickerel, Smoked whitefish, Shrimp, 5 game terrine, Blueberry venison sausage, Oxtail capers, Pickled cat tail hearts, Fiddleheads, Cranberry garlic chutney, Cucumbers, Raspberries, Blueberries, Radish, Crostini
Three Sisters Spring Rolls (Corn, Beans, Squash)
Spicy tuna seaweed, crab wraps (Japanese inspired sushi wrap)
Babka (cinnamon and chocolate in a bread dough, Jewish pastry)
Mandazi (Kenyan fried dough pastry infused with coconut and cardamom)
Pandesal with Ube and cheese filling (Filipino pastry)
Empanadas (from a variety of South American nations, some cheese filled some meat)
Bindaetteok, Korean fried pancakes with mung bean, ground pork, mung bean puree, mung bean sprouts, and kimchi
Department Roles
Events:
Planning logistics, scheduling, staffing servers and setup
Contacting caterers
Marketing the event to the public
Educational department:
Writing and developing program
Making the program accessible to a variety of ages and learning styles
Interpreters:
Discussing the colonial impact on the coffee, tea, sugar, and chocolate industry, such as the history behind these items
Presenting the diverse cultural dishes which use these ingredients
Distorting the typical high class perceptions of tea times and high tea
Part time staff on contract for this event series
Visitor Research:
Formulate research questions
Analyze survey results and suggest relevant alterations and next steps
Budget
Catering and food
10 choices of items + 50 of each item + $6 an item = $3000
Drinks: $160 coffee, $75 tea, $50 mate, $80 hot chocolate
Supplies, napkins, chafing dishes
$300
Event department
Salary
Event staff workers (servers, greeters)
$18/hour
Commissioning of art from artists
$1500/artist for their set & sculpture
Marketing
Social media postings – free
Ad campaign - $200
Education staff
Salary
Interpreter staff
$25/hour
Visitor Research
Outcomes
Make tea time welcoming to people of all ages, backgrounds, and ability
Critically discuss the colonial legacy of tea
Make learning enjoyable and accessible to people of all ages, backgrounds, and ability
Highlight the ways tea time can be used to bring community together
Objectives
Have tea time attendance demographics match Toronto demographics of age, gender, ethnicity
Have >90% ticket sales (relative to ticket availability/capacity)
Have >90% attendance (relative to ticket sales)
Have >30% of guests be first time museum visitors
Have >80% of guests respond agree or strongly agree on Likert scale of understanding questions (7a&b)
Have >90% of guests respond agree or strongly agree on Likert scale of enjoyment questions (7c&d)
Have >80% of guests respond agree or strongly agree on Likert scale of belonging questions (7e-f)
Summative Research The team will gather the emails used to purchase the tickets to the Disrupt Tea Time event and will send out an email questionnaire asking the visitors what their experience was like. We will use this feedback thought the run of Disrupt Tea time to improve and iterate upon design as needed. The idea is to make the program responsive to community needs and insure we are effectively engaging our intended publics. Some sample questions included on the questionnaire are:
Have you visited the Gardiner Museum before?
Yes, no,
Have you attended an event or program at the Gardiner before?
Yes, no, unsure (explain)
On a scale from one to ten how would you rate your visit to the Disrupt Tea Time event?
Using a Likert scale
Did you enjoy your meal?
Yes, no, undecided
What are your thoughts on the variety of items that were available on the menu?
Open ended response
Is there anything you thought was missing from this event?
Open ended response
These questions will be using a Likert scale of strongly agreed to strongly disagreed:
I have a better understanding of where my foods are made.
I have a better understanding of the history of tea.
I tried a food I had never eaten before.
I enjoyed the art on the tea sets.
I felt comfortable attending Disrupt Tea Time.
I felt connected to my table at Disrupt Tea Time.
I felt represented in this space.
How likely would you be to recommend this event to others?
Most likely to least likely Likert scale
We will also work with the interpreters to discuss the level of engagement they see at the event and accept any concerns or suggestions they may provide.
Image Board
