Pass the Plate: Artists’ Books and Food

January 30-May 31, 2026
Curated by Anna Simon and Maggie McLaughlin

This banquet of artists’ books all center around a single theme: food. Food deeply structures the fabric of our everyday lives. On a basic biological level, we cannot live without food. We physically need food to sustain and nourish our bodies. But food touches just about every imaginable aspect of humanity. Food has very real cultural, political, social, ecological, economic, and geographic implications. Food helps determine where people live, how people celebrate, the rituals they hold, and the communities they build. As of late, the entangled political and economic control of food increasingly dictates who gets to eat and who goes hungry. But food systems and cultures are dynamic, migrating and changing as the people who grow, harvest, and cook food also migrate and change. 

The works in this exhibit display food-based resilience, nourishment, and humor in the face of climate disaster and socio-economic disparity. The case on the far right addresses the political and environmental constraints of food, from the US prison-industrial complex to the Japanese seafood industry. The second case explores the intersection between art and food, including satirical commentaries such as Crackers and models of educational and cross-cultural artistic circles, such as Mixtura 2012. The third case entirely contains recipes and cookbooks, documenting how people preserve and share dishes. The case on the far left foregrounds community and storytelling, ranging from the interpersonal (such as Hunger) to the crosscultural (such Maíz and Santa Comida).

Through this exhibit, we hope that everyone can find a seat at the table to more critically reflect on the many ways in which food constructs their lives and the world around them.

The books displayed in the exhibit are:

Mario Batali, The Lunchbox Fund Cookbook
Barbara Ciurej, Twitter FEED
Mirel Fraga, Maíz
Toby Lee Greenberg, The Menu
Anna Hepler, Hunger
Paul Lamarre, The Starving Artists’ Cookbook
Christien Meindertsma, Pig 05049
Rachel Melis, Mitochondria
Antoni Miralda, Santa Comida
Asuka Ohsawa, Gone Fishin’
Edward Ruscha, Crackers
Scripps College Press, Cut and Dried
Taller 72, Mixtura 2012
Todd M. Thyberg, American Manifesto
Sandra Trujillo, Trouble
Claire Van Vliet, Eat Book
Diane Wakoski, Making a Sacher Torte
Joe Wilson, Eager Eaters