“The Neighbour’s Plate” — Derya Akay, Amna Elnour, Dana Qaddah Unit 17, Vancouver, 28 November 2020 to 17 January 2021

tepping into the exhibition “The Neighbour’s Plate” feels like stepping into a sensory still-life painting of 2020. Masked and sanitized on entry, you are greeted by the scent of cured meat: cloves, allspice, black pepper, and paprika on duck. Alone in the space, you feel the presence of others in the central display—a low circular wooden table dressed with food, mementos, and the vessels of consumer packaging. Derya Akay, Amna Elnour, and Dana Qaddah have set their table with traces that are both personal and mass-produced—Akay’s hand-painted silk pillow and Qaddah’s wooden inlay box, with contents shut out of view, are accompanied by impersonal