Recipes for Recipes: A Lone Bookbinder’s Search for the Stories about Food, Family, and Culture in Columbia.

An online exhibition by Artist in Residence Evelyn Wong. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheduled exhibition couldn’t be installed in-person, and was transitioned online.

This exhibition includes interviews, photographs, and the documentation of experimental in-studio processes that center around ideas of food, people, and community. Evelyn Wong narrates her residency projects, in-studio works, and her passion for understanding and sharing the cultural histories & experiences of Columbia’s restauranteurs, chefs, and local business owners.

Purpose and Inspiration
The question, “Where are your people from?” is a constant reminder that although the United States is incredibly diverse in its ethnic populations, I am still frequently seen as an outsider. To Asians, I am seen as an American, but to Americans, I am seen as an Asian. My reality is that as an Asian American, I am both and neither at the same time. Questions such as “Where are your people from?” and “Where are you really from?” have always shown me that although some people are genuinely interested in learning about my ethnic background, I am frequently othered as an alien in my own hometown due to people’s assumptions about my identity and where I am from. My background as an American—and as a Southerner—is often completely ignored. I am usually viewed as a foreigner with a until I’m given a chance to speak long enough for someone to hear the long drawl of my vowels, or I instinctively blurt out, “Well, bless your heart!” Over the past two and a half years, I lived in Maine and traveled throughout the New England region, and the experience of being removed from where “my people” are from has further heightened my feelings of non- belonging. In my recent research into online communities and forums for Asian Americans, I have learned that my experience is not unlike that of many diasporic people who have made the United States their home.