Jamie Cheung

Artist Statement

Food to me is a sensory experience that should invoke play and wonder — it is a medium that can be interactive, spatial, and personal. My practice explores dining as an act of placemaking and collective archive. I strive for my culinary practice to break the boundaries of formality and am committed to creating tablescapes for exchange, conversation, and celebration. My culinary practice feels like an intricately woven tapestry of relationships and experiences that have surrounded me. Despite my Chinese-Canadian upbringing, my palette has been most informed through cohabitation with roommates who were third culture kids as well. While inviting and coexisting in a space filled with individual yet distinct cultural values, sharing meals passed down through generations, and living the way our loved ones have lived has been intrinsic to my overall practice.

Hong Kong Style street food and non-greasy bites in a tablescape for Food Mahjong Club #4 in Chinatown, NY. Photo Credit: David Chow

Bio

Jamie is a multidisciplinary designer from Toronto, Canada who is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. With a background in architecture and a keen visual eye, their medium(s) span across food, drawing, and spatial planning. They began formulating their culinary identity through elaborate dinner parties thrown during architecture school. A themed party series turned zine later informed the name of the collective, "Edible Affairs". These opulent dinners were often spectacles with sculptural, interactive centerpieces, and at the root of it — always community oriented. After venturing to Brooklyn, Jamie continued collaborating with innovative design firms like Food New York to produce abundant tablescapes for their mahjong nights, a club series that received recognition in the New York Times. In the past year, Edible Affairs has produced events with/at/for the Aesop Queer Library, A+A+A, NEW Inc, and CUE Art Foundation.

[edibleaffairs.net]

jamieclcheung.ca

Natalie Cappellini

Artist Statement

As Edible Affairs our practice is rooted in food as a third space. We create sculptural food experiences that are responsive to artistic collaboration, based on whimsy, and rooted in our cultural food traditions (Natalie with California-Argentine roots, and Jamie with Canadian-Chinese roots). Food is a radical method of connection, and we are fueled by nourishing our creative community. We aim to create fluxus style food experiences which emphasize the connection, alchemy, and mess of food. With fine art and applied arts backgrounds, food has become the medium in which we create as it has the utmost ability to elicit pleasure, delight and sensuality. The universality of food is where we place our desires. Food is a constant opportunity for revelation! For celebration! Our collaborations evoke both nostalgia and futurism as food enables us to recreate and reinterpret just as quickly as we digest.

A still from our End of the World party. Including charcoal lava foccacia, and charred corn towers.

Bio

Natalie Cappellini is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Her diverse practice spans painting, sculpting, and the culinary arts. Natalie began her culinary journey as an independent child recreating recipes she saw on the food network with frozen food and leftovers in the family fridge. Natalie’s culinary practice is grounded in hospitality, a skill she learned from being the only child at her parents dinner parties. Upon settling in Brooklyn Natalie began Astrology Dinner Party a monthly lavish food affair centering queer community and built upon accessibility and conviviality. The creation of delicious food spectacles has been expanded through collaborating with Jamie Cheung on Edible Affairs which has contributed to events with the Aesop Queer Library, A+A+A, NEW Inc, and CUE Art Foundation.