Recipes for Recipes: A Lone Bookbinder’s Search for the Stories about Food, Family, and Culture in Columbia

An online exhibition by Artist in Residence Evelyn Wong. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheduled exhibition couldn’t be installed in-person, and was transitioned online.

This exhibition includes interviews, photographs, and the documentation of experimental in-studio processes that center around ideas of food, people, and community. Evelyn Wong narrates her residency projects, in-studio works, and her passion for understanding and sharing the cultural histories & experiences of Columbia’s restauranteurs, chefs, and local business owners. 

Purpose and Inspiration

The question, “Where are your people from?” is a constant reminder that although the United States is incredibly diverse in its ethnic populations, I am still frequently seen as an outsider. To Asians, I am seen as an American, but to Americans, I am seen as an Asian. My reality is that as an Asian American, I am both and neither at the same time. Questions such as “Where are your people from?” and “Where are you really from?” have always shown me that although some people are genuinely interested in learning about my ethnic background, I am frequently othered as an alien in my own hometown due to people’s assumptions about my identity and where I am from. My background as an American—and as a Southerner—is often completely ignored. I am usually viewed as a foreigner with a until I’m given a chance to speak long enough for someone to hear the long drawl of my vowels, or I instinctively blurt out, “Well, bless your heart!” Over the past two and a half years, I lived in Maine and traveled throughout the New England region, and the experience of being removed from where “my people” are from has further heightened my feelings of non- belonging. In my recent research into online communities and forums for Asian Americans, I have learned that my experience is not unlike that of many diasporic people who have made the United States their home.

Project Statement on wHeRe ArE yOuR pEoPLe FrOm??

“wHeRe ArE yOuR pEoPLe FrOm??” is a project that starts with my residency at the USC School of Visual Art and Design and Stormwater Studios in Columbia. As a Chinese American from South Carolina, my kitchen is always a blend of flavors from the American South and Chinese cuisine. Although recipes from my family’s cookbook are a large part of my culinary experience, I have inevitably taken a great deal of influence from my neighbors over the years—talented home cooks and local chefs from diverse backgrounds whose love of food and joy of cooking have inspired me as an artist and experimental home cook. This project will involve interviews and photographs that engage and highlight members of the local community, including chefs, home cooks, and food enthusiasts from my hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. The project will culminate in an artist’s book of family recipes, blended-culture recipes, interviews, and snapshots to show where “my people” are really from. The artist’s book, as a form of narrative visual art, will hold together stories from these community members who may have had family origins in Columbia or may have emigrated from other countries and found a home in Columbia. My personal ties to the community and my own recipes that have been inspired by these people will also be shared as part of this book’s creation. Each week of the residency, I will be holding a zine-making or bookbinding workshop for students, faculty, and staff at SVAD and utilize the workshops to have discussions on histories and cultural identities. At the end of the residency, I will host a community potluck and invite participants to be part of a discussion and share their story about a dish that has a special history for them.

Working on a Community-Based Project During a Global Pandemic

When I came to Stormwater Studios for this residency, I had already made arrangements with a few of the local restaurateurs and foodies to work on my project, “wHeRe ArE yOuR pEoPLe FrOm??” The project to feature some of the people who have influenced my own creativity in and out of the kitchen would include interviews delving into the lives and histories of these people, and how they have come to call Columbia their home. My experiences growing up as a Southerner and as a Cantonese American has led to a variety of explorative cooking methods and cultural fusion recipes, and I was interested in learning about whether some of the local chefs and cooks had similar experiences that have brought them to where they are today to share their food expertise with residents of Columbia. The plan was for this project to culminate in three parts: A handbound artist’s book with shared recipes, a short film highlighting some of the interviews, and a community potluck event in which members of the public would be invited to share a meal using food as the medium to guide conversations around our histories and where “our people” are from. While in residence, I had also wanted to teach bookbinding techniques to a community that, it seems for the most part, has yet to embrace book arts.

A number of difficulties arose within the first week that I was here, including a family emergency with one of my intended interviewees, scheduling and rescheduling conflicts, and the start of the reality that has become a world⏤our world⏤caught in the midst of a global pandemic. (Not to mention, my own realization of the awkwardness of asking my own friends to sign legal waivers in order to photograph and interview them.) While several of my interviewees and I tried to remain undeterred, we had to reckon with the difficulties of physically distancing ourselves while remaining engaged in photo shoots and interview questions. This was no easy task as we maintained a healthy distance around kitchen staff who were busy with dozens of takeout orders and the hope that they would be able to hold on to their jobs.

As the weeks passed, I made the startling realization that I was no longer simply documenting these people’s stories and their restaurants, but I was potentially documenting pieces of Columbia’s community that may not survive the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of local favorites where I had intended to stop in, order food, and spend time with the owners had already closed up shop for an indeterminate amount of time, leaving me little-to-no ways of contacting those who made the establishments their livelihood. It now seemed that the ever-changing landscape of my hometown was likely to change even more when we finally emerge on the other side of this global crisis, and this may be the last time I⏤or perhaps anyone⏤would document and capture some of these places as they stand today.

Along with the closures of restaurants, I encountered another hurdle when I needed materials and supplies. Namely, purchasing things that I needed in order to work on my book became a risk to my health and the health of those around me. In order to make progress on my ideas, I focused on experimenting with ingredients that I could use to extract colors for making inks, dyes, and paints that would eventually become part of my book. Since food was a main focus of my project, I turned to ingredients that could reference some of these establishments, and based my material choices on the recipes they had inspired me to create in my own kitchen. This included a great deal of processing the ingredients via methods of cooking, emulsifying, (re)hydrating, and/or mulling. Some of the ingredients included dry cocoa powder, perilla leaves, wakame seaweed, tomatoes, onion skins, collards, shrimp, coffee, and gochugaru (Korean chili powder). Most of these ingredients are not typically used for their colors, so the act of extracting colors and pigments for each one became a research process on its own, some of which resulted in incredible results while others failed horribly.

My lack of accessibility to materials also meant that I had no choice but to spend more time on the digital portion of my project. As a maker whose work is craft-focused and almost entirely analog, I had (and still have) a steep learning curve for the digital elements of my project. I have never undertaken a photography project, let alone attempt to create a film while learning and using programs like Adobe Premiere and Audition. Transcribing the thirty-minute interviews took me hours to do, and exploring the acoustics of sound in a digital format presented me with challenges that were exhausting, but exciting. My accomplishment of completing an 11-second clip was, for me anyway, worth celebrating, even though it is far from impressive. Nonetheless, from the start of this residency, I was determined to undertake a project that would allow me to explore my discomforts and begin to embrace technology in my work and my creative practice.

As I continue to work on this project after the completion of this residency, I believe that allowing myself to feel discomfort will prove useful⏤if not necessary⏤as we all have to face the challenges of trying to continue making work together during the global pandemic. Now, at the end of this residency, I see that my years-long reluctance to appear on-camera may have been simply due to my own insecurities. I suppose some of you have had a chance to watch my workshops on the SVAD Facebook page at this point, and I was thrilled to see that so many of you have followed along, interacted, and joined in me in making books and zines. For that, I am truly grateful and hope that you will continue to follow along. For the online exhibition, I must say I have never formally exhibited in an online exhibition (although one can argue that Instagram is really a carefully curated online exhibition), but I am up to the challenge of this as well. It is a curious time that we are now living in, and I think we should try to see it as an opportunity to not only practice healthier habits, but to also be kind to others and ourselves, and see what we should change from within. I hope that you will all enjoy, and join me as artists and as humans continuing to work and to show up for each other in spite of the challenges of our new era ahead. Be well, and stay healthy, y’all.

Evelyn Wong
Fireball Bookbindery
SVAD/Stormwater Studios Spring 2020 Artist-in-Residence