Recipe Box, Memory Box

2021

Hello. How have you been?
We’ve really missed you.
Have you eaten?

.

“Recipe Box, Memory Box” is a three-part remote and live place-based performance project using contemporary food traditions and ancient songs to unearth cultural memory, forgotten ancestry, and not-yet-emerged futures in the Midwest

With: Liza Bielby, Livia Chelsey, Jenna Kirk, Richard Newman, Renee Willoughby

Commissioned by John Michael Kohler Arts Center with funding support from ArtsMidwest

…from cherished family recipes to desperate empty cabinet miracles to tasty combinations swiped from restaurants of yore to the best snacks ever concocted,

we are what we eat.

 
 

Part I: Recipe Box, MemoryBox

“Recipe Box, Memory Box” began in March/April 2021 with a postcard recipe exchange, one-on-one phone call cooking sessions, and a two-week long telephone hotline where callers could take a recipe and leave a recipe.

Fresh fennel, shallot, spinach, cilantro laid out with olive oil, red pepper, nuts and feta cheese.
A person in an apron lifting thin phyla dough and laying it on a pan
An open oven with the light on and a pan of fresh baked cream puffs

Part II: Sports Edition

The project continued in August 2021 with an in-person series of Tailgates for Everyday Moments held to celebrate the garbage pickup with Sheboygan Public Works, a lunch break/shift change at a local factory warehouse, and the Sheboygan County Finance Committee (go Ziggy!), as well as a Sheboygan edition of the Take Out Take Down with restaurants Las Brisas and El Camino.

brats grilling on a grill outside and a pair of tongs picking one up.
A woman in sunglasses, t-shirt, and apron offering a small food basket while wearing a giant cardboard brat that fits over her face
5 people in lawn chairs outside at a park holding up white and blue cards that spell lunch. beside them, also in a chair, is a little girl in pink.
On a sidewalk. three people in lawn chairs and one woman standing, hold cards spelling out finance. In front of them are 3 men's heads printed on paper, attached to sticks, and staked in grass. Two others carry pig shaped umbrellas.
A man with their arms raised, a woman holding a baby and waving a ribbon pompom and another person beside her smiling.
A person in a hat smiling, hold up a yellow flag with a multicolor palm tree on it that says, "Las Brisas" while someone else takes a photo of them.
A woman wearing a long grey mustache and bald cap sits in front of a computer and a mic. Around her are people at tables and chairs watching her and smiling.
a tray of Mexican food, rice and beans and a blue sign beside it that says, "Tacos: barbacoa, fish, chicken, chorizo, tripe"
A crowd of people outside in a courtyard watching large screens. An elderly couple stands with their back to the photo. One holds up a pink flag and wears a JMC shirt and the other is in a floral shirt.

Part III: Homecoming - Remote Edition

Recipe Box, Memory Box culminated in November 2021 with a remote DIY dinner performance and community cookbook. Experience the final performance HERE and get your cookbook from the JMKAC SHOP HERE.

2 copies of a spiral bound recipe book titled, "Recipe Box, Memory Box". One copy is open to the recipes, "A tasty campfire treat" and "Grandma Hock Cake" and the other copy is the front cover.
A person in a blue checkered jacket and full bird helmet, inspects a basked with oranges and a green thermos
Two smiling people out side, one pours a red drink for the other from a clear glass pitcher. they both are wearing dried flower boutonnière.