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Join us as we host artist, chef, publisher, and author bryant terry for an immersive evening exploring the intersections of ancestral foodways, Black agrarian thought, community-based art practice, and food justice.
terry opens with a talk tracing the evolution of his two decades of work, illuminating how memory, land, and cultural resilience inform his creative and political commitments. He then performs Recipe for Staying Curious—a ritualized, recipe-shaped spoken-word piece that transforms kitchen practice into a framework for lifelong inquiry. Organized around intention, preparation, improvisation, iteration, and community, the performance invites participants to consider curiosity as both a discipline and a liberatory act. Following the talk, attendees will engage in a sensory exploration of spices and herbs—some sourced from regional farms—using touch, scent, and sound. This interactive exercise, rooted in terry’s culinary and artistic methodologies, encourages reflection on how sensory experience shapes memory, meaning, and our relationships to food and land. The evening will conclude with brief remarks about his latest book, The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2025.
The Food Studies Program and Food and Social Justice Action Research (FJAR) Lab are proud to host this event as a part of the FJAR Lab’s “Understanding Food and Environmental Justice through Music” Initiative. The evening is co-sponsored by the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University.
The event is part of our 2025-26 series “Food and Democracy,” supported in part by The New School’s university-wide strategic initiative on Democracy and Culture.
Presented by the Food Studies department within the Bachelor’s Program for Adults and Transfer Students at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and the Food and Social Justice Action Research Lab at The New School and the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at NYU.
bryant terry is a multidisciplinary artist, chef, publisher, and author. His studio practice bridges cooking, sculpture, sound, video, and social practice to explore resilience, cultural memory, and liberation.
From 2015 to 2022, he served as the inaugural Chef-in-Residence at San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora, curating dynamic programming connecting food, health, farming, art, and activism. As founder and editor-in-chief of 4 Color Books (an imprint of Ten Speed Press/Penguin Random House), he collaborates with visionary creatives of color to produce visually stunning nonfiction books.
terry’s achievements in the publishing world include authoring five highly acclaimed cookbooks, editing and curating an anthology, Black Food, and serving as the editor of The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2025. His work has earned him prestigious honors, including a James Beard Award, an NAACP Image Award, and an Art of Eating Prize. His book Black Food received widespread praise and was hailed as the most critically acclaimed American cookbook of 2021.
terry completed an MFA in Art Practice at UC Berkeley in 2025. He holds an MA in History from NYU and received his culinary training at the Natural Gourmet Institute.
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