Week 3 was dedicated to our senses, new flavors and food stories. As result, the textile projects show the camper’s own relationship to the topic. What’s your favorite dish? What reminds you of home? Which spices can be used for natural dyeing and what does the shape of a bitter melon look like?
During this week, we had the chance to go on a field trip to the current exhibition “Sour, Sweet, Bitter, Spicy” at the Museum of Chinese in America. The Chinese and Asian-American chefs let us know about their identities in America and their inspiration to create their dishes. The diverse interpretations of Chinese food culture were materialized in ceramic sculptures on a huge dinner table where the campers sat around and listened to the different food stories. The campers were impressed by the foreign forms of food, and the most interesting ceramics found its place in their handmade sketchbooks that the campers crafted earlier at Summer Camp.
Back at TAC, the kids transferred the sensations from the museum into their own world of food experience. An incredibly wide range of artful felt sculptures shows the personal preferences every kid has towards food.
For this week’s textile project, the kids used unusual fruits and vegetables to print. The rose-shaped section of a bok choi seemed to be most popular. Even the youngest campers cut around the silkscreen printed lines to fold the canvas into a nice little to-go-box with their unique food stories on the outside.
It wasn’t just the surface designer’s silk napkins that got bundle dyed with spices, even the work of the weavers landed in the steam pot. With eucalyptus, turmeric and onion peel woven in with other natural dye ingredients, they used their dyed weaving to line the outside of their nice to-go-box project.
On friday afternoon, the kids at camp proudly presented their work to their parents and friends. It was a very interesting week, where everybody learned something new about flavors and the various meanings of food culture.
