We got Fish Stories Community Cookbook back from the printer and it looks great. We have been sending copies out to contributors and gave a bunch a way for free at the Pier 42 Fall Celebration on Oct. 25. Email us if you would like a copy. Many thanks to Andy and G&P Expert Printing on Center Street; if you are looking for a terrific printer with good prices in Lower Manhattan look no further then G&P.
Working with Rachel Stevens on our Fish Stories at our LMCC studios space at 100 Wall Street, September, 2015
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/
My iLand collaborative group Embodied Mapping will be part of the iLand Symposium on April 17 + 18. Events at South Street Seaport Museum and Two Bridges Neighborhood Council. Embodied Mapping includes Kate Cahill, Meredith Ramirez Talusan, Jennifer Wen Ma, Kathy Creutzburg, Liza Zapol, Joe Goldman and me. For more info: http://www.ilandart.org/iland-symposium-2015/
Fish Stories Community Cookbook is a seafood cookbook, in progress, created by artists Meredith Drum and Rachel Stevens in collaboration with residents of the Lower East Side: neighbors, non-profit organizers, commercial business people and others. The project is supported by a grant and studio space on Wall Street from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and will be a part of LMCC’s Paths to Pier 42 summer programming 2015. Visual information and documentation forthcoming.
Inspired by spiral bound cookbooks produced by local Grange chapters, the Provincetown Cookbook, and the Slingshot Organizer (collectively designed Anarchist calendar), Fish Stories will include not only recipes for cooking seafood solicited from residents, but also stories, historical recipes, drawings, maps and health and ecology information. The name Fish Stories is designed to encourage imaginative and playful contributions. It is also an homage to Allan Sekula, an artist and theorist whose work interrogates the the politics of labor and the flow of global capital in the maritime industry. We envision the cookbook as a catalyst for community engagement and an opportunity to capture the lives and cultures of people who live in the LES. The Fish Stories Community Cookbook seeks to tie everyday lives to the ecology of the rivers, harbor and estuaries of New York City.
Copyright © 2024 Meredith Drum
