Please join the Harriman Institute for the opening reception of the exhibit The Alphabet Diet Project by Irina Danilova.

The Alphabet Diet Project is an annual performance that began in 1996 within greater Project 59 when the artist, Irina Danilova, discovered that the Russian alphabet (33 letters) and English alphabet (26 letters) together comprised 59 letters.

Since then, for 59 days in July and August, Irina Danilova has been eating food that begins with the same letter, first following the Russian alphabet and then – English. Each letter has a designated day. For example, August 4th is always an A-Day; August 9th is an F-day; August 17th is an N-day, and so on. In 2002 the Alphabet Project began to include meetings with people or visits to places with names that started with the corresponding letters. Several video documentaries were shot that year to record the change. In 2022 and 2023 instead of the Russian alphabet, Irina followed the Ukrainian alphabet, which has some different letters, but also 33 characters.

The exhibit will be on display at the Harriman Institute. March 26 – May 9, 2024.