What We Feed Ourselves is a multimedia project project on food, culture, and acculturation by myself and my sister Jami Lin. With the help of four grant partners (the Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, City of Minneapolis Government, and the Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation), I spent a year interviewing five immigrant restaurant owners and illustrating their food–the food they cook for others and the food they cook for themselves. Jami helped by editing food essays from five writers from the same cultures. We attempt to investigate and interrogate the ways food changes based on the path it takes, based on whose tastes (and spice tolerances!) we are entertaining, and based on who is controlling the narrative and translation.
For more on the What We Feed Ourselves Booklet, read here.
