Introduction:

Through digital art pieces that depict the relationship of Asian culture and food and clay pieces depicting the fruit my grandma cuts to represent my thesis that the relationship between Asian Americans and their food is very complex and holds significant value in their identity, culture, and emotions. My central thesis that I explore through my capstone is that the relationship between Asian Americans and their food is very complex and holds significant value in their identity, culture, and emotions. Through my project, I wanted to express how food is a big way to express love and gratitude. 

Literature Review:

After researching, I was influenced by the article “‘EW, what’s that smell?’ Asian Americans’ experiences of culinary racism”. This peer reviewed article highlights how food related discrimination is very common and shared among Asian Americans, but there isn’t much research on this topic. I wanted to create art depicting the topic of this article and to bring awareness to the topic of Asian Americans and their experiences with their culture’s foods. I ended up creating a digital piece showing a little girl holding a lunch tray with one side being stereotypical American food and the other side depicting traditional Korean foods. She is conflicted and nervous about which side to choose. Either being made fun of after choosing Korean food, or hiding away from her culture by only choosing the American food to fit in with her peers.

After more research, my biggest art influence was from the article, “Through Food Art, Asian-Americans Stop ‘Pushing Heritage To The Back Burner’”. I was specifically inspired by Stephanie Shih, a Taiwanese artist in Brooklyn. She created porcelain dumplings to portray and reconnect with her culture. I was inspired by this in my own project and created clay apple bunnies and clay korean pears. The apple bunnies represent my grandmother’s love, and the clay korean pears represent gratitude and greeting. 

Methods:

The research methods I used to gain more information for my capstone was to look through google scholar. This helped search for credible sources that were peer reviewed. For my artwork, I used air dry clay, acrylic paint, aluminum foil, and my ipad. I used air dry clay to create the apple bunny slices. I first used aluminum foil to create the general shape and size I wanted for each apple slice, and then used the air dry clay to wrap and smooth it. I repeated the same process for the korean pears and left them to dry. Once my clay works were dry, I used acrylic paint to paint the pears and apples. For my digital pieces, I used my ipad and apple pen to procreate and used the flat brush. After that, I printed my works.

Audience:

Although anyone can view my project, I wanted to focus my audience for my project to be Asian Americans that have experienced the same things I have and to accept and embrace their culture. I want my audience to be able to understand that there is so much more to our food than just flavor, but emotions behind it.