Asian American and Pacific Islanders offer much to our unique North American Foodscapes. Join Sarah K. Khan, Linda Black Elk, Sunhui Chang, Ellen Sebastian Chang, and Genevieve Erin O'Brien, a group of dynamic artists, makers, activists, cooks and healers, with richly layered identities, as they discuss how they navigate craft through the vibrant lenses of food and culture.

In celebration of the exhibition ROLODEX. Craft a Conversation, registrants will receive a special cocktail recipe prior to the program.

• This event is hosted through Zoom. New to Zoom? Visit their Help Center to get set up.

Crafting Foodscapes with AAPI Communities is the final program in conjunction with the exhibition ROLODEX. Craft a Conversation. ROLODEX draws from a growing index of self-identified Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) working in craft today. This directory was initiated by Warren Wilson College's MA in Critical Craft Studies in April 2021 and remains online indefinitely at this link. The project is on view at the Center for Craft until August 20th, 2021.

About the Moderator

Sarah Khurshid Khan is a maker and scholar of Pakistani descent. Before the discipline of food studies formally existed, she cobbled together an undergraduate degree in Middle Eastern history and Arabic, as well as several graduate degrees in public health, nutrition and plant sciences. She has since pivoted and is a maker of prints, photos and doc films. She has received numerous grants, residencies, and fellowships to pursue writing, research, and multimedia expressions on food, culture, women migration, and healing. She has presented her multimedia creations at Museum of the Moving Image, Queens Museum, and New York University, to name a few. @sarahkkhan http://sarahkkhan.com/

About the Speakers

Linda Black Elk is the Ethnobotanist for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, an instructor at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, ND, and the leader of the Medic/Healer Council for the Standing Rock NoDAPL protest camps. She lives on the Standing Rock Reservation with her husband and three children. She is a member of the Cawa and is also of Korean descent. She received her M.S. at Montana State University, her B.S. at Miami University-Oxford, and her A.A. at Sitting Bull College. She is active in promoting tribal food sovereignty and health though the uses of native plants. @lindablackelk https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/15047

Sunhui Chang is a chef and media communication strategist. Born in Incheon, South Korea, Chang later studied sociology at University of California, Berkeley. He started KDR Catering in 1997 and later worked as the Culinary Advisor for performance artist Robert Farid Karimi's "Diabetes of Democracy: The Revolution Starts in the Kitchen" project and collaborated with The Kitchen Sisters for an SFMOMA Makers Event. From 2011-2017, he was the co-founder of the award-winning FuseBOX Restaurant in West Oakland with theater director Ellen Sebastian Chang. https://cclarkgallery.com/exhibitions/box-blur-2019-how-to-fall-in-love-in-a-brothel

Ellen Sebastian Chang is a director, arts educator, writer, and human rights advocate. She made her directorial and writing debut in 1982 withYour Place Is No Longer With Us. From 1986-1995, Sebastian Chang was co-founder and artistic director of LIFE ON THE WATER, a national and internationally-known arts organization in San Francisco. In 2015, she collaborated with artist Maya Gurantz to create the underground public art project, A Hole in Space and from 2011-2017 she served as co-founder of FuseBOX Restaurant in West Oakland with her partner Sunhui Chang. She is a recipient of awards and grants from Creative Capital, MAP Fund, A Blade of Grass Fellowship in Social Engagement, Art Matters, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, NEA, Creative Work Fund, the California Arts Council, and the Zellerbach Family Fund. https://creative-capital.org/artists/ellen-sebastian-chang/

Genevieve Erin O'Brien is a Queer Vietnamese/Irish/American artist, culinary adventurer, community organizer, and educator. O'Brien lives and works in Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She holds an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2009, O'Brien was a Fulbright Fellow in Vietnam. O'Brien uses performance, video and installation to explore notions of “home” and “homeland.” Her conceptual and durational performances, one-woman shows, as well as installations and videos, have been presented at galleries and public venues both nationally and internationally. O'Brien is a 2014 Armed With A Camera Fellow awarded by Visual Communications in Los Angeles. O’Brien was an artist-in-residence at Thank You For Coming, a Los Angeles experimental food and art gallery, and a commissioned artist for the Los Angeles Music Center "2014 Encounters." She is lecturer in Asian American Studies at Claremont Colleges, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara. http://www.erin-obrien.com/

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