Bodies of Care
Urban cooking and gardening as tools for individual and collective resilience
Bodies of Care is a dinner residency with Family Dinner. Family Dinner is an art space/residency/project/dream starting from the basis of food and community, organized by Charli Herrington and Gordon H. Williams. It is built upon a collective research on reproductive labor— not just cooking and collecting recipes, but an experiment through learning, cooking, eating and cleaning together.
In lieu of the process of creating their next artist cookbook, Crystal was invited to contribute through her work of integrating familial and cultural traditions in community design to participate within the theme exploration of the body, “in the sense of loving ourselves and the world around us. Resisting marketed shame and guilt, and finding joy and strength in what we eat, when/where we eat, and whom we eat with. Discussing topics that often go undiscussed related to eating, norms, cooking and care”
Together, they examined various avenues of care in Rotterdam; in the personal form of nourishing the personal body through cooking with traditional chinese medicine and herbal practices and in the collective form of bodies through visiting public sources of care (including the community garden, independent book store, and neighborhood workshop).
This residency was conducted in the dead of winter. What is thought to be a time of restfulness, the garden still held productivity in the midst of freezing nights. Our examination revealed a tension between rest and care, “What does a lazy(in terms of being restful) winter mean and what do you make of the liminal energy to care for your body and greater bodies of care?
TYPE: Residency
SUPPORTED: Family Dinner
COLLABORATION: Family Dinner, Crystal Mah
