Annam

{designing experiences and seeking community by sharing rice}

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I am curious and question our everyday patterns and gestures in recent times of fatigue and unrest. As an immigrant woman living in the United States for thirty years, I have witnessed trust being shifted, broken and erased. The marginalization and hostility has been hurtful. I pause to question how can we can begin to heal? How can we grasp our heartbeat and hear beauty to seek community? How can we nourish our being, our soul?

I have been exploring the ritual of making and serving food through narratives based on my cultural heritage, memory, and upbringing. Creating a welcoming space to gather groups of friends or strangers around the table to share a meal is rewarding to me. I perceive this space as organic, vibrant, and sacred. Gestures, pauses, conversations, laughter, and slurps — these sensual experiences are fascinating and blissful.

The Annam project is a participatory community cooking experience around the consumption of rice through a brown cultural lens. Rice is the dietary staple grain in most Asian and Latin American countries. In South Indian homes raw rice Akki, and cooked rice Anna are a symbols of abundance. They are considered sacred and auspicious, and used during blessings, and acts of goodwill. Anna in a broader sense means food. Goddess Parvathi, the consort of Lord Shiva, is worshiped as Annapoorneshwari. She is the mother of food, land, and prosperity.

Nithyaananda kari, Varaa abhya karee, Soundarya rathnaakaree,
Nirddhotahakila ghora pavaanakaree, Prathyaksha Maheswaree,
Praaleyachala vamsa pavavakaree, Kasi puraadheeswaree,
Bhikshaam dehi, krupaa valambana karee, Mathaa Annapoorneswari
~ Sri Annapurna Ashtakam, Guru Adi Shankaracharya

I was accepted to Pre/Post/Ness graphic design residency hosted by DesignInquiry in Vinalhaven, Maine. I cooked and shared recipes for four rice dishes based on various topics related to my transnational identity. These dishes generated new conversations about home, cultural influences on cuisines through conquest, socio-economic disparities, and the healing and spiritual attributions of rice. Participants were designers, design historians, writers and educators. They were asked to share their thoughts during this participatory experience. Thanks to all the participants : Andrew Shea, Andy Campbell, Charles Melcher, Holly Willis, Jimmy Luu, Kimmie Parker, Margo Halverson, Mark Zurolo, Tricia Treacy.

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the meal as an enactment of community…the meal becomes a ritual of love, honor and attunement….I felt a deep sense of calm and connectivity, of serenity and well, the deep time of nourishment alongside histories of oppression.
~ Holly Willis, Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

+ DesignInquiry : International organization for experimental graphic design research
+ Video credit Annam preparation : Jimmy Luu