Exploring Identity Through Food and Ceramics
Photo by Frank Zhang on Unsplash
Meet Stephanie H. Shih, a Brooklyn-based artist with a passion for ceramics, culture, and social justice. In 2018 she launched a project called Oriental Grocery, where she recreates Chinese food with ceramics. She has used this project as a way to explore her own identity, as well as the diaspora of Chinese food.
“Black vinegar was the piece that really got me thinking about this idea of shared experience and shared nostalgia,” Shih said in an interview with Healthyish. She is referring to a ceramics piece representing a bottle of black vinegar, which she saw resonated with many after posting it on Instagram.
Shih’s work has been able to draw on the nostalgia and shared experience of many. For many second-generation Asian Americans food gives them a door into exploring parts of their culture. “For a lot of second-generation Americans exploring their identity… and their relationship to their identity, food definitely becomes that first tangible connection they have to the culture of their parents,” said Shih.
Her “everyday foods” are able to create a sense of community. As stated on her website, “through the lens of the Asian American kitchen, her ceramic sculptures reflect the diasporic nostalgia and the material lineages of migration and colonization.”
Yet another project of her involving food is her collaboration with ACQ Bread Co., a Brooklyn bakery. The project, called ACQ Flour Bank, will raise money to help those in the community currently facing food insecurity.
Artists can donate their works to the project, and once raffled that money will be donated to those in need. “We want mutual aid and community care to be something that is ingrained in every part of our lives—and we want to offer an example of how that can be possible,” said Shih.
Photos and more information about her art can be found here.