Breakfast Party (Virtual) is a month long Instagram live performance art project for September by Hanying Shi and Sophy Chang, two New York City based artists who graduated from the School of Visual Arts together. Even though the pandemic has brought these two artists apart from each other, they can still communicate through the internet. As the virus rages throughout the world with no sign of recovery in the near future, most people have experienced what feels like an endless quarantine, craving for interaction with people in person. To get over this sense of disconnec-tion, Hanying and Sophy performed a virtual breakfast party on Instagram, a Social Network Service(SNS) platform, where people, including their artist peers, can link to one another. 

Not only does this Instagram based project reflect the current situation, but it also reveals how two artists live in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic through the performance of the most basic of daily activities: cooking and eating. 

This live performance blurs the border between life and art. It took place at 9 AM in China and 10 AM in Korea every weekday of September 2020. They will choose a recipe for each day and make breakfast together, reinforcing a sense of connection between the two artists in the process. Compared to lunch and dinner, breakfast can make for a more intimate moment because people don’t often officially show-case it to the public. Hanying and Sophy wish to share this cozy atmosphere with the internet, their artist friends, and the public so that they too can engage in the warmth of the artists’ shared bond.