The cliché is that everything is connected; that all things are interrelated. The proposition here is that the experience of quarantine is more than the space one is placed in, although this is critical too: that the experience of architecture also embodies a complexity beyond appearance and enclosure - there is much more happening that involves the intimacies of both circumstance and mood; context and food. While the room will be a subject for another analysis, this study looks at the food one was provided in quarantine over a period of two weeks; foods can have an impact on moods.
The idea is to use the technique implemented by television dietitians and doctors who want to illustrate an individual's food intake over time: to collect and spread out everything that is eaten so as to make the situation clear and factual; as realistic as possible, the proof literally being in the 'pudding.' Generally people underestimate the quantity and the quality of the food that they consume. Here the purpose of collating the daily intake as serial photographs, is to illustrate the subsistence side of existence in one hotel room for fourteen days. What one eats is as important for one's health and well-being as is the space, sunshine, fresh air, and exercise.
The analysis of this experience of hotel quarantine is made simple by the fact that one was locked in one room for two weeks, with no opening windows, no balcony, no open-air sunshine, and no exercise beyond what one could contrive in movements limited to the narrow passageway spaces around the beds, the table, the chairs, and the luggage; leaving just space and food as the variables. Behind this review is the idea that health, like architecture itself, is never singular; that it is holistic by its very nature, not by quirky choice or preference, implying in this case, that hotel quarantine is unhealthy because of its restrictions; that much more care and attention is required.
The great irony is that quarantine in Queensland is managed by Queensland Health; one feels that the department could very well have been Corrective Services, such is the approach to confinement and care.
The meals have all been photographed before being assessed, as they arrived and were unpacked. Two meals were provided, meal A is the standard meal for everyone; meal B is the special meal that was initially described as ‘sugar free; low carb,’ and had to be changed to ‘diabetic’ as no one seemed to know how to interpret the first request; even 'diabetic' appeared to be a challenge. Frequently the meals were the same.
After being photographed for the record, the meal was then considered as something to be consumed. Here the photographs make things difficult: that the potatoes might be hard and inedible could not be recorded, as they had been boiled and torched to make them appear to be deliciously roasted. The unripe fruit could not be pictured; neither could the powdery texture of the fish species that could not be identified: nor could the toughness of the greens be captured in a photograph that records colours and shapes that might be superficially attractive, but difficult to impossible to consume. That the meats might not be cooked is something that could be imaged; as well as the bags of chips that accompanied some meals, as if this was sustenance; along with the bottle of water that came with each meal,* the flavoured 'juice,' and the other synthetic indulgences provided for the sweet tooth; but the soggy texture of, say, a croissant cooked with a jam centre cannot be recorded, even though the experience of one cooked without jam, but eaten with it, is completely different.
It seemed that no one had given thought to the diet for sedentary people confined for two weeks, even though Queensland Health was in charge. One might have thought the department's own published guidelines and recommendations might have been used to plan the meals, and that someone might know the calorie intake on offer, as well as the variety and quality of food selected. This did seem important, as the meals provided came from a fixed, no-choice menu - take it or leave it: the food just arrived at the door in a brown paper bag, in cardboard and plastic containers, complete with plastic cutlery and a bold knock. It looked like no one was checking anything but the count of the bags.
The other characteristic that normal photography cannot capture is temperature. All the cooked food provided arrived, at best, just warm; generally tepid. One has to view all of the images below with this understanding, irrespective of the pictorial impact of the photograph that we have been trained to see in the best light possible: WOW! These are NOT hot, tasty meals. One has to read the images without any drooling, constantly reminding oneself of the meagre filling of the chewy flat bread; the tasteless, challenging toughness of the greens; the luke-warm meats and pastas; and the texture of the cardboard that sucked up the juices of the meals to become a sludgy mess on the plastic cutlery that proved useless at cutting; best for just scraping muck off containers.
This was not delightful tucker that fed the body and spirit. It was only after eating some of our our food that we had to purchase that we experienced the difference; the paper bag meal seemed to drag one down into a depressive, sluggish silence, while the other invigorated the mind with freshness and hope. The photographs record the deliveries, many of which were discarded both in whole or in part. The bottled water* simply accumulated until we had dozens sitting around, along with the plastic cutlery waste, and the unopened sauces, salt and pepper, and vinaigrette packages whose fate matched that of many of the meals.
THE PHOTOGRAPHS
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THE CHALLENGE
As time passed and moods changed to a frustrated anger after having to discard both a lunch and a dinner on the same day, the challenge was put: let’s see the Queensland Premier and the Queensland Chief Health Officer eat this food for two weeks and see what they think then. The challenge still stands. The requirement is not that they go into sealed isolation for two weeks like us, with no fresh air, open sunlight, or exercise; it is just that they must eat exactly the same food as we were given with no choices, and nothing else for this period, because this is what they were happy to provide for our two weeks in quarantine. The meals should all arrive in the condition they were given to us, in cardboard and plastic in a brown paper bag, complete with plastic cutlery, the bottle of water, and the sundry sauces etc. The meals should also be luke-warm to tepid as they were for us, and must be eaten directly from the containers they arrive in.
One is left wondering; is Queensland Health interested in health, or in the theoretical management of health issues that dominate the news?
https://www.cleanwateraction.org/2020/07/29/bottled-water-human-health-consequences-drinking-plastic
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