In Eating the City, Song utilizes the experience of desiring and eating to foster connection and reflection. As Song’s primary subject and medium, food becomes a digestible physical and metaphorical embodiment of universal human themes such as consumption and impermanence. Song mingles a “whole world” into his miniature mega-city through a mixture of unidentified, generic structures along with recognizable landmarks from around the globe. A tower of assorted bagels mimicking Shanghai’s Pearl of the Orient tower, a chocolate-wafer-guarded forbidden city, and an empire state building constructed by neatly stacked biscuits, stand in this confectionary empire. Without asserting any geographic specificity, Song fuses a universal insatiable appetite for sweets with an unquenchable desire for globalization, consumption, and urban development, exposed by the comingling of the landmarks. Through eating the city, the audience participates in a communion regardless of their cultural background. Yet the gluttony eventually leads to an unavoidable obliteration also experienced by all; while constructing the appetizing complex took days, destroying it only took minutes. Such ephemerality symbolized by these sweet yet profound fragments consumed by the audience also translates into the transience of our bodily needs and desires.