A La Mesa - ICA Watershed

Aquí y allá: juntos a la mesa

Created for the ICA Watershed, East Boston, 2019

Aquí y Allá: Juntos A La Mesa highlights the important role the common table can serve as a site for gathering and for nourishment. Since 2016, hundreds of women have partaken in communal meals made of diverse stories through the ongoing multigenerational community project, Comida Casera - Spanish for homemade food or food from home. Participants in Comida Casera events share stories and a dish inspired by a person who has had a meaningful impact on their connection to home. Through these simple gestures of hospitality and welcoming, notions of home and community expand through food and storytelling.

At the ICA Watershed, visitors were invited to sit at the living table, hear recorded stories collected at past Comida Casera events, and share their own stories on cards provided for others to read and reflect on. At the table, visitors surrounded themselves with a collection of plants comprising a range of local edible species grown with Eastie Farm to reflect on our past, present, and future relationship with food sources. Throughout the summer, a series of programs and activities on cultivating food, home, and community were co-hosted by artist Evelyn Rydz and Kannan Thiruvengadam of Eastie Farm.

Table activations included programs such as Transplant Tales, Solstice Stories, Recetas de Casa, Green Walks, Garden Tastings with Local Chefs Ellie Tiglao, chef and co-owner of Filipino-American restaurant Tanam and Monica Leitner-Laserna, chef and owner of La Sanghita Café and co-founder of Eastie Farms.

Learn more about this participatory project at ICA here. Read the article in Edible Boston here.