Newly dropped: our first Kitchen Studio has opened!

AADHum's Kitchen Studios program sponsors small gatherings of scholars and artists created around a shared desire to make something amazing. Fellows are drawn from across AADHum programs. Much like our microgrant program, but focused on slow collaboration over time, Kitchen Studios support innovative and independent student work.

Interactive Spice Exhibit | Fatima Seck & Himadri Agarwal

This microgrant + Kitchen Studios residency supports the ideation and development of an interactive spice exhibit. Specifically, Fatima and Himadri will record family recipes from mothers and aunts, curate a collage of spice cabinets, and research how spices came "to be used as a result of fusion and migration."

Fatima Seck is a graduate student in the Comparative Literature program at UMD, and Himadri Agarwal is a graduate student in the Department of English. Bridging tactile experience, digital curation, and public humanities, this project explores the origin and use of spices by "tracing historically, anecdotally, and in practice, how spices migrated between countries and cultures, focusing on Senegal and India."

The exhibit will showcase relevant research findings, recipes, a collage, and feature a tactile component where participants are encouraged to smell, taste, feel, and share stories about spices – "tell[ing] an accessible, public-facing story of food and the cultures it stands for."