Inspired by the experience of high table whilst research fellows at St Chad’s college, Durham, Z+Z First started The Salon in 2007 from their Hoxton studio. Their idea was to create a table carefully composed to encourage dialogue and collaboration, and the monthly Sunday Soup Salon was born. Now held aboard the ship De Walvisch, The Salon has expanded from its early days to include live performances and art installed in and around the ship as well as presentations from leading experts in a wide range of fields. The Salons are curated dinners of up to fifty, an opportunity to break bread with artists, writers, musicians, scientists, performers, art collectors and pioneers, adventurers; a club where collaborations form and cultural innovators gather to feast upon new ideas. True to Z+Z’s adherence to the ideas of “radical Physicalism”, The Salon promotes live experience and in-person interaction and has been the catalyst for many creative collaborations. Z+Z introduce everyone to everyone individually at the table and they consider it a relational aesthetics experiment.

Participants, voyagers, visitors, guests include:

Alannah Currie, Jimmy Cauty, Dan Cruickshank, Martin Ward (Emeritus Professor of Astronomy, Durham), Doug Fishbone, Richard Wilson, Jem Finer, Richard Strange, Sam Lee, Anthony Fawcett, Adrian Evans (Queen’s Pagaent Master), Ansuman Biswas, Anne Bean, Langlands & Bell, Hew Locke, Catherine Hall (writer), Peter Duggan (tug master), Chris Earlie (master of Tower Bridge), Bob Parks, Tina Grace, Pete Helmer, The Balina Whalers, Marcia Farquhar, Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni, Nick McCarthy (Franz Ferdinand), Karen Russo, Frances Mayhew (former director Wilton’s Music Hall), Ben Philips (lightship 95 recording studios), Nikolai Larsen, Layla Curtis, Nick Yarris (former death row in-mate), Jock McFadyen, Bob & Roberta Smith, Susie Honeyman, Matt Stokes, David Gryn, Annalisa Picciolo, Miyako Narita, Jane Bustin, Emer O’Brien, JJ Charlesworth, Jen Thatcher, Dr Peter Johnson, David Blandy, Terry Smith, Anthony Gormley, Simon Wilson (taxidermist), Stephen shiell, Resonance FM, Ondra & Barbora Otradovec, Andrew Brown (publisher) Alona Pardo, Mazaika Music, Peter Fink, Filippos Tsitsopoulos, David Cotterell, Katrina Larkin, Brian Marks, Kate Mason, Genia, Immodesty Blaize, Emily Gillmor, Mitch Mitchelson, Catrin Osborne, Indra Khanna, Jonathan Allen, Paul Harnden, Mark Hudson, Russ Malkin, Yu-Chen Wang, Lloyd Evans (theatre Critic), Ricardo Cinalli, Mark Powell (tailor), Johnny Vercoutre