What are the historical determinants and legacies of Filipino foods? How do foods travel as part of the labor diaspora? How does food ground, enable or destabilize Filipino identities?

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 30, 2014) -- The Center for Art and Thought (CA+T), a web-based arts and education nonprofit organization, is pleased to announce the launch of its next virtual curated exhibition, Food Worlds, on CA+T's website (www.centerforartandthought.org) and Pinterest site (http://www.pinterest.com/artandthought/adobo-my-way/).

Co-curated by Clare Counihan and Sarita See, Food Worlds assembles artists and scholars who together create a map of the world through Filipino food. And what a rich, unending series of combinations and juxtapositions that has turned out to be. Worlds, plural. Inspired by Doreen G. Fernandez’s ground-breaking research into Filipino food histories and culture, this virtual exhibition considers what making and eating Filipino food reveals about Filipinos in the Philippines and its wide-flung diaspora, as well as those others who (refuse to) eat Filipino. Thus, we focus on the Philippines but also extend our analysis to other communities shaped by the multiple specters of colonialism, militarization, and globalization.

As works by Laura Kina and Wesley Ueunten, Jessica Hagedorn and Alexander Orquiza suggest, food is a key way to understand the intimacies and alienations of colonial presences throughout the pacific, while Johanna Poethig, Tim Manalo and Elaine Castillo reflect on those same negotiations far from “home.” Martin Manalansan, Nerissa Balce, and Jerry Takigawa further complicate notions of “food” by exploring the politics of smell, production and waste. For a full list of contributors please see the extended curatorial statement (http://www.centerforartandthought.org/work/project/food-worlds).

Yana Gilbuena, CA+T’s new Artist in Residence, translates Food Worlds’ questions into a traveling exploration of cooking and community. During her residency, she documents and reflects on her ongoing SALO project:  in a different city in a different state each week, she hosts a pop up dinner of regional Filipino foods over the course of fifty weeks.  She depends upon what she can find locally—from produce to flavorings—and strangers in each city share new (or familiar) dishes and, briefly, lives.

Alongside Food Worlds, CA+T is also hosting Adobo MY Way, a search for the best adobo recipe (http://www.pinterest.com/artandthought/adobo-my-way/).  The unofficial national dish of the Philippines, adobo reveals the rich regional and individual variations in Filipino food. We challenge every cook who’s ever claimed that “adobo my way is the best” to join the competition. The five recipes with the most “re-pins” by June 15, 2014 will win an adobo-themed CA+T tote bag—and bragging rights.

About the Center for Art and Thought:

Starting from the perspectives of Filipinos around the world, the Center for Art and Thought (CA+T) harnesses the potential of digital and new media technologies in order to foster dialogues between artists, scholars, and the broader public.  A web-based nonprofit organization, CA+T believes that the convergence between art and critical thought is a crucial way to generate new modes of knowledge production and creative and critical lenses for understanding and transforming global conditions.

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