Project Description:
Food is community, food is power, food is legacy, food is memory, food is love, food is home, food is life. Food has the capacity of bringing folks from different backgrounds together. Food is personal history, oral history, and oral tradition. Multidisciplinary artist Mike Durkin plans to look at the role food and recipes play in different regions. Whether it’s a recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation, or the recipe we’ve made because it makes us feel good, recipes hold special places in our lives. The project titled: and you will its done, when the oil stops bubbling. By tracing the past, present, and future stories around the food we can forge deeper relationships with our neighbors as well as the environment our food comes from. We will use dialogue around food, recipes, and food making as the starting place for further discourse on the status of the neighborhood. We can honor those that are no longer with us through the sharing of their recipes. We can challenge food access, distribution and what’s happening at a day to day level through recipes. We can look towards the future by brainstorming dishes that symbolize growth and prosperity in the community.
https://www.muralarts.org/artworks/and-you-will-know-its-done-when-the-oil-stops-bubbling/
Bios:
Mike is a large-bodied multidisciplinary social practice performance artist residing in Philadelphia and New York City. Mike is guided by the intersection between art and the everyday. He has created site-responsive social practice productions exploring houselessness, food access, place, and gentrification. He is currently developing a performative cookbook that looks at the role recipes play in communities incorporating dance, video, and communal meal making in the Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia with Mural Arts. Upcoming projects will be held at the University of Central Arkansas, the University of Houston, Louisiana State University, and Michigan State University. Mike has held residencies with Mural Arts, Revolve Art Gallery in Asheville, NC, Space at Ryder Farm, Drop Forge and Tool, the Hambidge Arts Center in Rabun Gap, GA, and the Greenhouse Lab with The Orchard Project. Mike’s work has been presented at the Brandywine River Museum, Barnes Foundation, Mt. Moriah Cemetery, the Life Do Grow Farm, and in parks, churches, and fields, along the streets in Kensington, virtually, and most recently with The Performance Studies program at Texas A&M University. Mike is part of the 2017 MFA in Devised Performance class with Pig Iron Theatre Company/University of the Arts.
www.mikedurkin.info