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Spanning from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025, AC and The Spanning from Fall 2024 to Spring 2025, AC and The Brick collaborated on ECOTONES, a series of four ecofeminist programs exploring local agriculture, foraging, food and herbalism as ritual, and biodiversity: 🌱 ritual paintings and a Kamayan Feast with Paige Emery (and chef Ria Dolly Barbosa) 🌱 a screening and foraged food with Meech Boakye, featuring Foragers (2022) by Jumana Manna 🌱 a SPROUTIME kids workshop with Leslie Labowitz-Starus  🌱 a gathering and communal offering with Mexico-based colectivo amasijo (and chef Fatima Juarez of Komal) ECOTONES took place in conjunction with Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism at The Brick, and as part of the Getty Foundation’s ambitious initiative PST ART: Art & Science Collide, as part of a region-spanning cultural moment, reaching vast audiences interested in the intersection of art, food, feminism, and sustainability. Thank you to the artists and chefs, and all who attended these programs, and to our partners at The Brick, Arlington Garden, the Audubon Center at Debs Park, and ArtCenter! Support for this program series was provided by Kim and Keith Allen-Niesen, The Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, and Olivia Marciano. @paigeemery_ @thebrick_la @arlingtonpasadena @colectivo_amasijo @riadollybarbosa @ghostyboi @audubon_debspark @leslieartlab Images: Paige Emery: The Banana Leaf is a Container Technology, September 2024. Photos by Jessica Howes. Meech Boakye: watering, October 2024. Photos by Gina Clyne. Leslie Labowitz Starus: a SPROUTIME kids workshop, November 2024. colectivo amasijo: a circular offering, March 2025. Photos by Gina Clyne.
Each season, Active Cultures hosts our seasonal Su Each season, Active Cultures hosts our seasonal Supper Club, bringing together our community of supporters, artists, advisors, and partners. For our spring supper, Fatima Juarez and colectivo amasijo collaborated on a menu at Komal, highlighting locally harvested and foraged greens, ingredients from the Yucatán Peninsula, and corn—each dish a unique transformation of corn, whether through roasting, nixtamalization, grinding, and traditional cooking technologies. From colectivo: “While we talk about the importance of preserving the diversity of corn we also have to understand the importance of caring for the recipes that metamorphose a seed into life, and how the diversity of recipes and corn are interconnected with the diversity of ecosystems.” AC hosts the Secret Suppers to share our gratitude for our closest supporters; to uplift the practice of artists and chefs in our city; and to feed our year-round public art programming.  We are so grateful to our Supper Club sponsor William Grant & Sons, chef Fatima Juarez and the Komal team, colectivo amasijo, and of course AC’s beloved members and artists for joining us at the table ❤️ Images: Active Cultures Supper Club with Komal and colectivo amasijo, March 24, 2025. Photos by Gina Clyne @ginaclyne @colectivo_amasijo @komal.molino @williamgrantusa
To mark the beginning of spring, AC and The Brick To mark the beginning of spring, AC and The Brick hosted Mexico City-based colectivo amasijo for a communal offering and performance. The artists invited audiences to intertwine with the Milpa cycles, a five thousand year old agricultural system, and to perform a ritual that has transcended time, blurring boundaries and reproducing a cycle that has been passed down through generations. The performance gathered us to bind ingredients foraged from around Los Angeles, and culminated in a meal made by chef Fatima Juarez of Komal. Many thanks to Arlington Garden for inviting the artists to forage in the garden in preparation for this performance, to colectivo amasijo for their practice, care, and work in this program, to chef Fatima Juarez and the team at Komal for preparing the lunch, as well as our friends at The Brick and ArtCenter for collaborating to bring it all together 🌽 on the occasion of LIVE ON EARTH. Materials designed by Dafne Osorio @66.6669.66 @colectivo_amasijo @komal.molino @thebrick_la @arlingtonpasadena @artcenteredu @pinchefatima_ Images: colectivo amasijo, a circular offering, 2025. Produced by Active Cultures and The Brick with ArtCenter College of Design. Photos by Gina Clyne. (@ginaclyne )
Thank you to all who joined for Yasmine Ostendorf- Thank you to all who joined for Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez: Fungal Teachings under the peppercorn tree at the @audubon_debspark ! 🍄 Together we spent the afternoon drawing from the Let’s Become Fungal! Oracle Cards, examining the mycelium for a model of interspecies collaboration in social and environmental change. We did exercises on how to move through different notions of time, on borrowing language from the world of mycology, how to collaborate across borders, species, communities and disciplines and many other fungi-inspired topics. We will be continuing to collaborate with Yasmine and these topics over the coming years, deepening our understanding of the fungal world. We look forward to seeing you at future programs to explore the interconnectedness of ecological systems into creative practices and everyday life.
At LagoAlgo during Mexico City Art Week, we gather At LagoAlgo during Mexico City Art Week, we gathered with chefs and organizers Saqib Keval and Norma Listman of @masalaymaiz, in conversation with curator Paola Santos Coy, to explore the deep intersections of migration, colonization, and culinary traditions—and how their work actively challenges white supremacy, extractive food systems, and labor inequities. Their approach to food is deeply political, shaped by Norma’s early practice as an artist and cook in the Bay Area’s art community—a history in which her role is often overlooked—and Saqib’s work with People’s Kitchen Collective, which drew from the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program. Across their organizing, research, and restaurant practice, they insist on fair labor, collective care, and the necessity of rethinking dominant food narratives. The room was filled with our friends, partners, and artists, so many of whom are deeply committed to the impactful work at the confluence of art, food, and ecological practice. Deep thanks to our wonderful partners at @lago_algo for making this program possible, and to all who joined us in considering these urgent questions.  Images: 3. The MSG Club with Masala y Maiz and featuring Tommie Smith, a project by Glenn Kaino and Niki Nakayama, produced by Active Cultures, Mexico City, 2018. Photo by Ana Lorenzana.
Spend an afternoon with Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodrígu Spend an afternoon with Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez to uncover the wisdom of fungi and how to incorporate them into our daily lives. Through activities prompted by the Let’s Become Fungal! Oracle Cards, we will delve into the world of fungi and discover how these organisms can teach us about symbiotic relationships, cyclical calendars, and more. By examining mycelium as a model for collaboration, the workshop offers a playful approach to exploring profound questions and lessons for social and environmental justice. 🍄 Link in bio to RSVP! Space is very limited, please sign up for the waitlist and we will try to get as many folks as we are able. Image: Rommy González for Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez.

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