Upcoming

Book Club: Session 2

Event Details

DATE: November 1, 2025 TIME: 11am - 12pm

LOCATION: To be announced

Registration

TICKET PRICE: Free

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Active Cultures Book Club at Arlington Garden, Pasadena. September 6, 2025.

Join us for our second session of Active Cultures’ Book Club, where we’ll be discussing Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China’s Countryside (2020) by Xiaowei Wang.

In the book, Xiaowei Wang explores how rural China has embraced and innovated technology, even shaping global tech. From pork farmers using AI to produce the perfect pig, to disruptive luxury counterfeits and the political intersections of e-commerce villages, the author connects globalization, technology, agriculture, and commerce. Blockchain Chicken Farm offers an original and probing exploration of innovation, connectivity, and collaboration within the digitized rural world. This insightful look is complemented by humorous “Sinofuturist” recipes, which frame meals as they undergo transformations through new technologies.

The Book Club is free and open to all. Sign up below to receive our Book Club communications, which include full location details prior to each session.

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About the Book Club

The Active Cultures Book Club invites our community to engage with texts that delve into the interconnectedness of art, food, and ecologies through collective reading and conversation. The series explores the aesthetics of food, culinary resilience and kinship, alternative foodways, land rights and stewardship, and the intersection of agriculture and technology. 

Credits

Active Cultures is sustained through the generous support of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture; the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; the Getty Foundation; the Jerry & Terri Kohl Family Foundation; the Maurice Marciano Family Foundation; the Offield Family Foundation; Teiger Foundation; the Wilhelm Family Foundation; James Cohan Gallery; Who Wants To Be A Millionaire/ABC; William Grant & Sons; Active Cultures’ Board of Directors; the Members Circle Annual Fund; Green Art Lab Alliance (GALA); and the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition.