Coined by Lee, Black Food Futurism is a radical artistic and culinary practice. With "Mending the Salt Bone: A Black Food Futurism Participatory Performance and Tasting", Lee continues the expansion of her practice into immersive sculpture, creating a site where food, spirit, and community converge. As part of the installation participants will encounter an interactive tasting that activates the work and invites participants to experience food as a springboard for collective dreaming.
The evening will feature a public conversation tracing the emergence of Black Food Futurism as both theory and practice. Together, these offerings invite audiences to consider how food can function simultaneously as an archive, altar, and dream mapping tool capable of carrying memory across timelines while seeding new worlds.
This workshop is part of the programming for our current show, Into The Plursiverse
Nia Lee is an award winning conceptual culinary artist and facilitator. Her work invites participants into collective acts of
wonder, memory, and reimagining, often using food as a portal for spiritual and philosophical inquiry. Their work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The Cut, Thrillist, Vogue, and more. Nia also appeared on Netflix’s James Beard–nominated docuseries High on the Hog and the James Beard Award–winning podcast Black Kitchen Series.
THE CURATOR
Nordia Simmonds (they/she) is a queer Afro-Caribbean diasporic philosopher and activist by way of Jamaica, Bronx, New York, and Central Florida. Nordia holds a Masters of Arts in Depth Psychology with a specialization in Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco-Psychologies (CLIE) from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her curatorial approach is both a care practice and pedagogical tool that expresses consideration for all persons and art pieces involved in any given project whilst acting as an interlocutor to relay messages between the audience and the artwork. They enlist decolonial feminist frameworks in their work to support non-hierarchical and non-binary thinking. For her, this project is at once an offering, meditation, and practice of a worldbuilding without borders.
Sovern LA is an intersectional community center and gallery, located in LA’s West Adams district, focused on supporting Black and Indigenous women and gender expansive people of color. Fueled by a passion for justice, equality, and creative expression, Sovern is driven by the collective determination to center healing justice, challenge systemic barriers, empower artists of color, and amplify their impact for collective wellbeing. By building a community that uplifts and celebrates diverse voices, we aim to reshape the art world in Los Angeles and beyond, creating a more inclusive and equitable space where artists and communities can thrive together.
A note on accessibility: Sovern LA is committed to creating a space that is welcoming and accessible to all. At this time, our building does not have ramps, which limits physical access for some community members. We recognize this as an area that needs improvement and are actively workingaking the space more accessible. We do our best to accommodate people of varying abilities and encourage anyone with specific access needs to reach out before attending so we can support you as best we can.