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Karangahape Road's Lim Chhour foodcourt is known for its delicious Asian food offerings; from Sichuan malatang and Malaysian satay noodles to fusion-style Japanese donut burgers and supermarket snacks.
For Auckland's creative communities, the foodcourt become a place of familiarity and comfort; a place to wander in for a pre-gig meal with friends, or just to spend some time on your own.
This week, artist Jefferson Chen of Goodspace is paying homage to Lim Chhour's legacy and its hardworking vendors with Vendor, a multimedia installation marking the release of his debut album, Let's Talk About Death.
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From 28 September to 4 October, Chen himself will pose as a vendor at the foodcourt. His album will be the menu, he will be serving up songs as the dishes, and the 10-course group dining experience will be a start-to-end album listening party.
Chen says the concept of Vendor came to him almost two years ago. The foodcourt's proximity to creative spaces and music venues made it easy to see the parallels of hustle culture in both artmaking and food vending.
"Being in the heart of Karangahape, I play shows regularly, I go to friends' shows regularly, and I like eating at Lim Chhour foodcourt. I think it's one of the few places on Karangahape where you can be in a public space but still feel alone and anonymous and low-key, you have that choice to be like that.
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"I think within the Asian Aotearoa narrative, there is a shared understanding ... of hustle, of hard work, of commitment to family, the importance of family, and I think particularly within this installation called Vendor, a lot of our families have worked as vendors, as market gardeners or selling fruits and wares in the flea market.
"Being an artist is a different kind of hustle, you still push in a certain way ... but I think there's a shared understanding there of that kind of hustle and upbringing."
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Those stepping into Vendor are transported to a real colourful explosion of spatial set design and sound.
Bright imagery of food is lined up on the walls, paper menus are littered across the counter, there are tartan bags woven like kete, and fruit crates on cinder blocks covered in joss paper.
There is even a wall of shame - CCTV images in the style of Lim Chhour's infamous mugshot wall.
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"It's a maximalist approach... it's all the things I love within one space, and that's not to say it's meant to be messy and all over the place," Chen says.
"Everything's intentional, every detail has been carefully considered. We really wanted to blend into the ecosystem of the foodcourt and when it's all within one space, the space looks how the album sounds."
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The album's 'menu' design is as thoughtfully laid out as its tracklist, flowing seamlessly from entrees to mains to dessert in sonic form.
Ratworld's Jennifer Cheuk has also reimagined each of the album's 10 songs as a variety of Asian dishes, with reviews explaining why a certain song might taste like a particular food item.
The opening track 'She Don't Need You' is visualised as squid rings - punch-in-the-face salty and addictive beyond belief. The track 'Soap Dish' - Chen's favourite - is earthy and melancholic like bou lei. The closing track, 'You Only Give What You Leave', is sweet in an understated way, like ma lai gou, a soft Cantonese sponge cake.
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Chen says he wanted the album title, Let's Talk About Death, to directly juxtapose the kind of easy listening an artist name like Goodspace might suggest. He says at its core, the album follows a narrative of survival, living, and ultimately, death.
"There's an underlying narrative in Asian diasporic and migrant communities of hustle ... of setting up shop and surviving. As artists, we've been welcomed into this space, and we have the luxury of making art because we have those foundations that have been set up by our forebears.
"Lim Chhour is a really important cultural heritage site, it's been here for over 20 years, it's stood its ground, and I wanted to activate it through performance and pay resilience to the tribute of its character, and to the vendors in many ways."
