For humans, every day used to be solely centered around food. You were lucky if your community had the spare time and resources to develop religious rituals or art. And those practices were still about food: celebrating rain and praying for good harvests, asking for protection from wild animals while hunting. Now we have the audacity to be resentful about how much time we spend worrying about and preparing food. But it’s always been this way. You can’t Seamless and Grubhub your way out of this. 

In Episode 2 of The Restaurant, Season 2, a less cooperative suspect at Café Wha? has stopped cooking for himself and somehow thinks that’s okay? Food is not going to let you off that easily, and neither is the Detective played by Casey Jane Ellison. Family is not just a refrigerator you can feel entitled to, by the way. Café Wha? is not the comfortable, indulgent experience you thought it was when you made your reservation. Unless you are ready to uncover your biases, confess your wrongdoings, and show contrition, you might never make it out of here. 

In this episode Earface, Blue Chicken, and an erudite Paranoid Fly follow up with a discussion about fat. No, it’s not about how they gained weight over the summer. Before humans and animals, before sentient life, there was fat. Without fat, there would be no Us. But what is it exactly? And when did the first fat appear? Fat has been politicized, monopolized, demonized, ignored and celebrated. 

Watch to find out about the first fat cells and what the hell fat flowers are.

The Restaurant Season 2, is a co-production of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève for the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2021.