On three mornings this summer, multidisciplinary artist McKendree Key brings her project The Breakfast Den to the lawn on the High Line at 22nd Street, to engage artists and members of the public in meaningful conversation. By carving out this time and space for the everyday acts of eating and gathering, the artist means to generate a new kind of social interaction.

B.Y.O. (Bring Your Own) is a new series of intimate, unscripted conversations staged in public space. Hosted by artists who center their practice on food and dialogue, these events contribute to an exploration of critical thought, creative exchange, and discourse production. B.Y.O is inaugurated this year with McKendree Key’s
The Breakfast Den, Heather Hart and Jina Valentine’s The Black Lunch Table, and Elia Alba’s Supper Club.

All conversations will be recorded and photographed, transcribed, and published—both online and as a booklet that will be available later in the year. Check back for information at thehighline.org

This program is open for the public to become a first-hand participant and join the discussion.

• As a participant, you are required to RSVP beginning May 29.
• Space at the table is limited. We will send a reminder 5 days before the program to reconfirm your participation.
• Breakfast is provided for participants.
• Participants will be required to arrive 15 minutes before the start time, and by the time of the program any unclaimed tickets to participate of the conversation will be released to the waitlist or walk-in audience members.
• Conversation will be prompted and framed around large critical themes: Aging/June, Utensils/July and Masks/August; participants need no previous experience or knowledge.

ABOUT THE BREAKFAST DEN
The Breakfast Den was born as a public conversation in a private space: for its first iteration, Key hosted the conversations in her backyard den, advertising the conversations with a small sign posted outside her apartment. By bringing it to The High Line, the hope is to broaden that reflection to larger audiences.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
McKendree Key is a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist whose work deals with social space through divisions and cross sections, both physically and through the realm of the happening. Key has exhibited her work internationally and nationally, including solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York, and the Sculpture Center, New York. She has been the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts award, and has attended residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the CUE Artist Foundation.