aisha tida

Diaspora Dumplings: Pantry Tours x Traveling Test Kitchen (DD: PT x TTK) is a social practice art project that travels to participants’ home kitchens. Through conversation, pantry tours, and collaborative dumpling-making, the project uses food as both material and metaphor to explore identity, migration, memory, and belonging.

The resulting stories, images, and recipes are published as a growing, publicly accessible online archive that reframes everyday people as culture-bearers and ordinary items as artifacts worthy of study and preservation.

Filed under:
dd, houston, event, food, social practice

︎︎︎See:
Nominate A Participant!


This project is made possible with the support from The Idea Fund. The Idea Fund is a re-granting program administered by DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses and funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

︎︎︎More info:
TIF Round 19 Grantees 

Diaspora Dumpling Lounge @ BIBTY بيبتي
Pop-Up / Culinary Art Event
2025

Join us for Diaspora Dumplings x BIBTY–a table of intentions in a soothing lounge space for resting, refueling, and reunion. Enjoy a small plate of dumplings or a share a Together مع بعضنا Platter, made by hand with love. Featuring collaborative tablescaping with handmade ceramics by Sofreh Studio.

Grab a drink at the bar and have a quick snack before returning to the dancefloor . . . or strike up a conversation and stay awhile.

Filed under:
dd, houston, event, food, social practice


︎︎︎More Info:
BIBTY Eventbrite

A femme-centered SWANA/Arab dance party bringing together diaspora sounds in a community-rooted, inclusive space.

A collection of recipe card sets filled out by participants of the DD project.

Each set contains three unique cards  that guide storytelling chefs through the imaginative process of dreaming up their own diaspora dumpling. 


Please ︎ contact the artist to contribute your story-based recipe to the archive!

Filed under:
dd, participatory, social practice, food, diaspora, archive

︎︎︎Click to Explore: Diaspora Dumpling Recipe Archive

This installation is the first adaptation of the Diaspora Dumplings project for a gallery setting. Titled Diaspora Dumpling Potluck 001 (Tableau + Artifacts), the work presents the project in two ways: first, it gives a glimpse of the pilot Diaspora Dumpling Potluck + Archiving Party (held in September 2024), and second, invites exhibition visitors to co-author the DD project by contributing their own set of story-based recipes to the archive.

Exhibited in EXperimental at Box13 ArtSpace January - Februrary 2025.

Filed under:
dd, installation, exhibition, food, sculpture, diaspora, participatory, social practice, houston

︎︎︎Click to Explore: Diaspora Dumpling Recipe Archive

At the Diaspora Dumpling Potluck + Archiving Party, eight participants shared the edible results of their exploration of the richness of food as medium.

Each guest chef was challenged to invent, prepare, and share their very own diaspora dumpling, defined as “an inventive, cross-cultural food item made to be eaten in multiples—necessarily composed of a mixed filling that is wrapped in dough before being cooked. An edible medium for sharing who you are and where you come from.”

Filed under:
dd, food, sculpture, diaspora, participatory, social practice, houston, event