Chautauqua: Storied Foods
On Saturday May 7, 2011, 11 AM – 6PM, Farm City Chautauqua will present a day of programming drawing from all of the creative energy of the artists participating in our multi-month series.
Communal Table, Community Cooking Club, Chloe Bass, People’s Champs and Tracing Trash have come together to present one collective, monumental performance work that creates a circus of stories inspired by food.
Location: Sara Delano Roosevelt Park
Chrystie Street at Stanton Street
Tent at rear of the basketball court
Map of StreetFest
In Brief: At an outdoor kitchen, a team of artists will share foods with passersby that elicit narrative. Participants will be invited to join in one-on-one chats delving into intimate food stories, some recorded for online posting. Each performance cycle will end/begin with a hootenanny led by the live band, The People’s Champs. Through discussion and communal effort, participants share & understand food in new ways.
Storied Foods: Communal Table will concoct “Essential Oils,” a sampling of flavored oils savored by denizens of the Lower East Side of Manhattan: Chinese Chili Oil, Puerto Rican (pan-Latin) Sofrito, and a vegetarian Jewish caramelized onion “schmaltz”. Each of these three types of oils form part of a distinct ethnic palette. Participants will be invited to taste each of these condiments on bread as an appetizer to spark dialogue with the artists about their ethnicities and the flavors of their cultures. The artists will give each guest a card to record background info and their own essential ethnic recipes. The artists will display the cards and some will be selected to be posted online. Communal Table is a project of Deena Lebow and Ame Gilbert, hosting host salon suppers highlighting art and craft of food narratives.
Community Cooking Club, an interactive program led by Tracy Candido, will present ”Food Tarot,” inviting participants to imbibe blueberry iced tea (blueberries are known to impart mental clarity) and then reading their tarot cards. According to Candido, “the individual and I will be sharing a story that we are writing together, fueled by this elixir of mental clarity, as we look at their recent past, present and future.” Community Cooking Club engages the public in making and eating food together to empower the lives of people in urban environments.
Chloë Bass will create a “Community Spice Rack” of scents and secrets. Participants will make a message in a bottle for New York City. Chloë Bass creates interactive works, such as “Process Dinner,” where food is shared as a social experience, transforming guests into observed performers.
Tracing Trash : Food Flow
Discover the long and winding path of your food while sipping a special elixir derived from discarded citrus rinds. Tracing Trash members Elliott Maltby, Clarinda Mac Low and Jill Slater bring the life cycle of food to front and center for this day’s interaction. Tracing Trash is part of ArtCraftTech, a project of Culture Push, Inc and uses public interaction to spark dialogue about food justice and urban land use by focusing on the life of garbage. Original Tracing Trash members also include Sara Eichner, Deena Patel, Neha Sabnis, Kathy Westwater and Babette Audant. Tracing Trash will be presenting more garbage lore and thoughts around waste and space as part of the Farm City Chautauqua at 61 Local on May 24 and 25.
Tracing Trash: Grapefruit-Ginger Elixir
Bring equal parts water and sugar to a boil.
Mix until sugar dissolves.
Turn off heat and allow mixture to cool.
Add rescued and cleaned grapefruit peels and ginger peels.
Refrigerate and steep overnight.
Compost grapefruit peels and ginger.
Mix syrup with seltzer for a refreshing beverage. (Or use to create a cocktail of your choice).
People’s Champs’ will perform original compositions, including titles from their latest EP, BandCamp, released on May 6, 2011.
Storied Foods is presented as part of Streetfest, a component of The Festival of Ideas for the New City, May 4-8, 2011, is a major new collaborative initiative in New York involving scores of Downtown organizations, from universities to arts institutions and community groups, working together to affect change. A first for New York, the Festival will harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore the ideas destined to shape it.
It will take place in multiple venues Downtown and is organized around three central programs: a three-day slate of symposia; an innovative StreetFest along the Bowery; and over eighty independent projects and public events. The Festival will serve as a platform for artists, writers, architects, engineers, designers, urban farmers, planners, and thought leaders to exchange ideas, propose solutions, and invite the public to participate.
Festival Information: festivalofideasnyc.com.
StreetFest Brochure: http://issuu.com/newmuseum/docs/festival_of_ideas_program
Special Thanks: Annie Wachinski. New Museum, who invited us & answered myriad questions, George Weld & Holly Howard, Egg Restaurant, who helped us source foodstuffs, Nicole Reed who lent us transportation & all our friends & relatives who told us food stories inspiring us to share this work with you.
