It’s Just Lunch… with Sebastian

The project’s concept was to deliberately arrange an opportunity to engage with a stranger and see what would happen.

A photo is taken on the moment of meeting. Then I invite them into my truck and take them to a really remote, secret spot to have lunch with them. On return, a second photo is taken which brackets the experience and hopefully conveys an idea of what transpired.

On the HDTS website we put a notice asking if anyone wants to have lunch with Sebastian to reply to the link.

Many people replied, and I had to pick one for each day of the event. It had to be someone I didn’t know. Also, some people thought they could make a reservation, like I was just going to serve them food, and made requests, etc. So I threw all those out and picked two that just seemed to get the idea and would participate.

On the first day, Erin was the guest. There is a picture of us in front of my truck, standing apart as strangers do.

I took her to a remote old mining place way across Wonder Valley- a possibly pretty scary situation, although I wasn’t trying to be scary or anything. We got to talking and I had a really nice canopy that I set up, with blankets on the ground, and I had prepared a really good lunch, with chicken and salad and drinks, and even dipped strawberries for desert- I had made everything myself, nothing was like “take out”.

We really clicked and seemed to have so many of the same attitudes and opinions, it was really fun, and on the way back we decided to get matching tattoos of a scorpion together at a tattoo shop in 29 Palms. So the second photograph is us standing in the same spot, in front of my truck, hugging each other and showing our fresh tattoos.

The second day it was the same set up, and the guest’s name I now can’t remember. She was a very nice woman from the Bay Area, I think she had some kind of art job. We had pleasant conversation and an ok time, and I took her back and we got the second photo. Both photos are almost identical.