Rachel and I were recently interviewed by Hester Street Collaborative for the Making of Paths to Pier 42 website. We discussed the process of creating our collaborative Fish Stories Community Cookbook as the culmination of our artist residency with Paths to Pier 42 in lower Manhattan. Interview link.
In mid June I led a three day workshop at the Two Bridges after-school in East Chinatown. I created a curriculum that invited the students to imagine and design their own seafood restaurant for their neighborhood. We looked at menus from a selection of the many existing seafood restaurants already in Chinatown and admired photos of their interior spaces. We learned about the kinds of seafood (and other ingredients) available wholesale, and studied costs in order to properly set prices on our menus. We also talked about the aquatic life living in the NY Harbor (upper and lower). I showed the students maps of the harbor and gave them information, provided from the New York State Health Department, about the kinds of fish (and quantities) that are safe for children to eat. I emphasized that fish for eating should only be caught in the lower harbor.
Rachel and I took part in the LES Ecology Center’s fishing clinic on Friday June 26. It was a lovely afternoon. We collected several terrific recipes for Fish Stories from the families and individuals that were there. All photos by Rachel.
Here are some images that Jennifer Wen Ma took during our April 18th workshop as part of the iLand 2015 Symposium at Two Bridges Community Room in the LES. Our workshop set out to engage the five senses in contemplating and recording boundary conditions in the Lower East Side. We walked a path of edges and collaborated in small groups through a participatory mapping exercise that sought to question our perception of edges through the lenses of media, memory, navigation and temporality. What are the qualities that signify a boundary? How do you know you are at an edge? How do we record a shift or change?
The Embodied Mapping iLAB Residency group includes Kate Cahill (Architect), Kathy Creutzburg (Sculptor/Public Artist), Meredith Drum (Intermedia artist), Meredith Ramirez Talusan (Writer/artist/dancer), Jennifer Wen Ma (Interdisciplinary artist) and Liza Zapol (Artist / Oral Historian).
As part of our Fish Stories Community Cookbook, Rachel Stevens and I meet some of the residents of Hamilton Madison House in the Lower East Side on April 17th. Big thanks to our gracious host and translator Philip Li. We will post some of the recipes generously contributed by these terrific women and men here: http://fishstories.nyc/
