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PS21/PATHWAYS. Food Cultures: a Conversation
Presented in partnership with Villa Albertine
PS21 Pavilion Theater, Two Pauls Cafe & Patio
Sunday June 23, at 2 pm
General Admission: Suggested $15 donation, includes full day of events and complimentary drinks and cheese.
Youth & Children are free.
Celebrates summer for the entire family, with a feast for your mind and your taste buds. Discover a world of cuisines, create an edible pastry map of New York, and unwind at the dance craze party! Food Cultures is presented by PS21 and Cultural Services of the French Embassy’s Villa Albertine.
What does the food we eat say about us and the world we live in, and what stories can we tell through food? How has the way we eat evolved, and what will our food future look like?
Join Villa Albertine and PS21 for an afternoon of conversations reflecting on some of the most urgent economic, social, and environmental issues of our time through the prism of food.
The event will feature two panel discussions, one on the intersection of food and migration, and the other on the future of sustainable farming, as well as a participative workshop led by an architect and pastry chef, followed by a dance party in the evening.
Run of Day:
2 PM | Feeding Creativity: Food and Migration
Conversation + Q&A
Sanaë Lemoine, cookbook author (Make It Japanese and Hot Sheet) and novelist (The Margot Affair)
Mayukh Sen, Author of Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America
Moderated by Adam Dalva, Writer, Editor and Professor of Creative Writing.
3 PM | Book Signing with Sanaë Lemoine and Mayukh Sen
Organized in partnership with The Chatham Bookstore
3–5 PM Tarte-ography
Bring your kids and the kind in you – to Tartography. This interactive pastry workshop, suitable for all ages, explores the multi-cultural urbanization of New York City through flavors, textures, and patterns. Participants will collaboratively create a large pastry map using various creams, toppings, and sauces to abstractly interpret the evolution of the city’s diverse cultures and neighborhoods. Building on the conversations of the day, the workshop will conclude with the consumption of the intricately composed pastry cityscape.
4 PM | Growing Together: Pathways to Sustainable Food Systems
Conversation + Q&A with
Lindsey Lusher Shute, Co-owner of Hearty Roots Community Farm and founder and CEO of the Farm Generations Cooperative
Emma Ractliffe, Founder and codirector of Ranchlands Coop
Moderated by Lela Nargi, Author, Editor and Journalist
5 PM | Dance Craze Party with Tim Davis, AKA DJ Giant Corporation and Gillian Bowen
When the temperature drops, it’s time to heat up the dance floor at PS21’s Dance Craze House Party. At the Dance Craze Dance Party, we teach participants the moves to a few Dance Crazes from the 50s and 60s, then the dance party follows, with an exquisitely curated playlist of songs designed to get your body to move to their rhythms. Open to all ages and abilities
Launched in 2021 by the French Embassy in the United States, Villa Albertine is an arts institution that supports cultural exchanges between the United States, France and beyond. Present in 10 American cities, Villa Albertine offers innovative programming nationwide, including 50+ residencies each year for artists, thinkers, and creators across all disciplines; a series of cross-cultural dialogues and events; grants, resources, and incubator programs for professionals in the cultural sphere; and a magazine “States”.
Follow Villa Albertine on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn | villa-albertine.org
Gillian Bowen is a modern and contemporary dancer based in NYC. She studied with the Martha Graham School and is a certified teacher of the Graham technique. Having experienced many facets of the dance world since starting her training at the age of five, Gillian is looking to expand its current structures and transcend its limitations
Savinien Caracostea is a kaleidoscopic creative, working at the intersection of design, culture & technology. He brings his expertise in graphic, spatial and culinary design to imagine, generate and activate the commercial and leisure spaces of tomorrow. In addition to consulting international brands on creative strategy and innovation, he publishes a magazine and started a non-profit exploring the future of hospitality.
Adam Dalva’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, and The Atlantic. He serves on the board of the National Book Critics Circle and teaches Creative Writing at Rutgers University. Dalva is a writer-in-residence at Brooklyn’s Invisible Dog Art Center, and has received fellowships from Scotland’s Hawthornden Castle, Iceland’s Gullkistan, the Vermont Studio Center, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Wildacres. His graphic novel, Olivia Twist, was published by Dark Horse in 2019. Adam was a judge of the 2022 Story Prize, the Books Editor of Words Without Borders, and the Senior Fiction Editor of Guernica.
Tim Davis is an artist, writer, and musician who spends an embarrassing amount of his life listening to, writing about, collecting, and being devoted to music. His photographs are in the collections of dozens of museums internationally, and he teaches photography at Bard College
Sanaë Lemoine is a novelist and cookbook writer. She is the author of the novel The Margot Affair, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and the co-author of the cookbooks Hot Sheet and Make It Japanese. In 2022, she was a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow. Born to a Japanese mother and French father, she was raised in France and Australia, and now lives in Brooklyn.
Lindsey Lusher Shute is co-owner of Hearty Roots Community Farm and the cofounder and CEO of Farm Generations Cooperative, an organization that leverages technology and tradition to build a more just and sustainable future for food and farmers. Earlier, Lindsey cofounded the National Young Farmers Coalition and led it for 10 years as it grew from a handful of volunteer farmers into a nationwide network with 40 chapters in 28 states and a grassroots base of over 150,000. The Coalition worked closely with USDA to improve its support of young farmers, including a microlending program that has now served tens of thousands of farmers nationwide. She was recognized as a “Champion of Change” by President Barack Obama and is the recipient of the Glynwood’s “Harvest Award.” She holds a BFA from New York University and an MS in Environmental Policy from Bard College.
Lela Nargi is an award-winning journalist, author, and editor living in Brooklyn. Her work covering the intersections of food systems and food policy, science, the environment, and social justice issues has appeared in Civil Eats, Eater, Food and Environment Reporting Network, The Guardian, Modern Farmer, Mother Jones, The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and many other outlets. She also writes books – mostly about science, mostly for kids.
Emma Ractliffe is an entrepreneur, activist, and farming enthusiast with bases in New York City and the Hudson Valley. She was born and raised in France, where her father, a biodynamic vegetable farmer, inspired her passion for regenerative agriculture. Early in her career, Emma worked with smallholder farmers in India and Egypt as COO of Sara’s Organic Food, an organic food distribution company. More recently, in the United States, Emma has focused on applying finance to create a better food system. She is the founder and codirector of Ranchlands Coop, a cooperative land investment platform that purchases land on behalf of its rancher members in order to remove it from the speculative market. She has a BA in Economics and Middle Eastern Studies from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford University.
Mayukh Sen is the James Beard Award-winning author of Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (2021) and the forthcoming Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star (2025). Three of his essays have been published in The Best American Food Writing, and his articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among other magazines and newspapers. He teaches journalism at New York University and lives in Brooklyn.