The Gallery Upstairs at the Institute Library
presents an OPEN CALL for the exhibition Melted Pots & Cooked Books
Deadline to apply is July 15, 2019
Exhibition will run Sept-Dec 2019

We all come from somewhere else, and bring with us memories, recipes, and comfort in edible form. As these recipes travel, they also change and adapt to local products and available cooking methods. “American Cuisine” is a crucible of admixed cultures, histories, cuisines, spices and traditions.

Melted Pots and Cooked Books is the fall/winter exhibit at the Institute Library focusing on our collective shifting and intersecting food experiences. Our celebrations are enactments of old traditions, blended with new innovations, contemporary preferences and often necessary modifications and modernizations. This project interacts with those from both oral and written traditions and seeks to engage all the senses by including sound, scent, and taste into the traditional word and image setting of the art gallery.

Melted Pots and Cooked Books also goes outside of the traditional gallery format in that it includes domestic items and objects not commonly demarcated as “art”, and will highlight the cultural importance and relevance of such things as family recipes and tools as “art” by displaying them with aesthetic care and respect. The exhibit will also include relevant books to provide a historical grounding to the show and connect past views of “American Cuisine” with how we presently define ourselves.

Melted Pots and Cooked Books posits that breaking bread together is interactive art in one of its most immediate and profound manifestations, and something that we all participate in. Sharing food with others is a universal act of generosity which allows cross-cultural conversations to start, stories to flow, memories and personages to come alive in the moment. The exhibit aims to access and examine this collective social mechanism through the gallery exhibit and related events including tastings, gatherings and readings.

The Gallery Upstairs at the Institute Library is currently putting out an OPEN CALL to artists and non-artists alike from the Greater New Haven area to be considered for the exhibition. What are we looking for?  It’s not necessarily ART as you currently think of it so please read.  We want YOU…

To share YOUR cultural heritage, family experiences and the food you enjoy. What recipes and techniques has your family carried with them from afar? Do you use special objects, tools or containers? We’d like your memorabilia, recipes, handwritten on stained paper, orally recited, photos of everyone together. That bread bowl, that rice pounder, that special pan or griddle.

  • Are you an artist making work involving images and ideas of food relating to production, celebration, heritage, rituals or family? Show us a sample, we’d love to
  • Are you a person with an interesting family heirloom, recipe or piece of memorabilia relating to food or dining, reflecting your heritage and background? If yes, please let us know- we are eager to hear from you!
  • Do you have something too precious to part with during the exhibit? WE ARE HAPPY to photograph or document your treasure.
  • Talk to us: Do you have an oral recipe or memory you’d like to share? We can record a short audio clip and include that….
  • Is there something you miss that doesn’t taste the same or is impossible to get? We are making a collection of those elusive tastes….
  • Everything about food and cooking from home–gardening to food preservation (pickles, brines, smoking) to food carts and street food are interesting to us!
How to participate

Send an email to Melted Pots to Gallery@institutelibrary.org with the following information:
Who:
Your name and how we can best contact you (phone, email, post or personal visit)
What:
• An object, photo or a memory you’d like to share. Do you have a picture you can send? If yes, great! Wobbly phone pix are
• Is it a work of art you’ve made? What size, materials, etc is it made from? Again: Do you have a picture you can send? If yes great! Wobbly phone pix are fine.
When: is it old? Is there a date in time-related to this?
Where: where in the world or what group or religion is this food tradition affiliated?
Where is the object or work of art located now- is it in New Haven and are you able to get it to us or would special arrangements need to be made?

All submissions should be in by: July 15, 2019

We will get back to you no later than July 22 with our response.
We will try to include as much as we can. Please understand that in the interests in creating a coherent exhibition we cannot say yes to everything.
Participation is completely free and open to all in the Greater New Haven community. No costs, no fees. We encourage all to apply. If English is your second language please let us know we will arrange for a translator.

 We will be documenting Melted Pots and Cooked Books and creating a special cookbook as a part of the show- Every participant will be included and will receive a free copy. Additional copies will be for sale and will raise funds for future gallery programming.

The Gallery Upstairs at The Institute Library is a not-for-profit exhibition space which showcases contemporary artists in group exhibitions, linking the Library’s rich and historic assortment of books, by presenting exhibitions revolving around words, books, archives or collections.

Resident Gallery Curator Martha Willette Lewis, also an artist and avid cook, is organizing this project. Martha has curated over 11 exhibits for the library around the themes of words, books, archives and collections. She welcomes your submissions, queries and participation.

For further information and press inquiries, please contact Gallery@Institutelibrary.org

 This project is being made possible by an award from the International Association of New Haven, and by the Friends of the Gallery Upstairs at the Institute Library. We are grateful for the generous support.