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Working with Rachel Stevens on our Fish Stories at our LMCC studios space at 100 Wall Street, September, 2015

Fish Stories Workshops at 2Bridges Kids After School at Two Bridges Neighborhood Council

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.

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Fish Stories at LES Ecology Center Fishing Clinic June 2015

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.

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April 18 iLand Symposium

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).

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Fish Stories Community Cookbook commissioned by Paths to Pier 42 NYC 2015

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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.

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