About the Event

Curated by Sofia Thiệu D’Amico and Anna Khimasia for The Immigrant Artist Biennial

Pinch of Us is more than a cooking class—it’s a participatory workshop series led by multidisciplinary artist LuLu Meng and collaborators. The project transforms the Essex Kitchen into a communal studio for the 2026 edition of The Immigrant Artist Biennial: Identity Card and Talk & Taste.

Inspired by the Lunar New Year traditions of Meng’s Taiwanese family, the project draws on the dumpling as a symbol of prosperity and care, centered on collective labor. For this edition of the workshop, curators Anna Khimasia and Sofia Thiệu D’Amico invited artist Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya and Rujuta Rao to share their own dumpling-making traditions with distinct folding techniques, flavors, and histories. We will be making a Goan vegetarian Patoleo and a Thai vegetarian and pescatarian Miang Kham. The workshop creates space for participants to explore the idea of the multicultural self.

About the artists

LuLu Meng works across media to explore the interplay between oneself, others, and the broader environment in contemporary society. Having moved between different worlds—chemical engineering, costume design, and life as a queer artist from Taiwan now based in NYC—Meng found that this crossing of disciplines and selves became the source of a lasting inquiry: what makes us, and what we make in turn. Their concept-based approach examines quotidian life to surface cross-cultural commonalities and differences, posing the question outward to the viewer: What shapes us? What brings people together? Using everyday materials, data, digital components, drawings, and images, Meng creates durational, participatory installations that invite reflection and engagement. @lulumeng.space | @pinch.of.us | https://www.lulumeng.space

Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya is a sculptor and installation artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Born in Atlanta to Thai and Indonesian-Chinese immigrants, her work traces how forces of trade, conquest, and dispossession are pressed into bodies, land, and memory, and what persists in their wake. Phingbodhipakkiya’s has been exhibited at MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. @alonglastname | alonglastname.com

Rujuta Rao’s practice spans sculpture, installation, book art, beverage, and social practice, alongside conceptual and functional garments through her gender expansive clothing line RUGA. Research-driven and personal, her work uses material investigation to explore migration, place, family history, and hospitality. Rao is curious about how artworks and publications can transform into spaces for gathering, creating conditions for connection and dialogue between the artist and audience. Rao received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Parsons School of Design, New York, and her BFA in Sculpture from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. She is a certified Japanese Sake Adviser through the Sake Service Institute International, Tokyo, and a sake sommelier candidate. In 2026, Rao is a member at NEW INC, the New Museum’s cultural incubator, a dual resident at Dieu Donné and Artists Alliance Inc., and has been awarded a fellowship at Initial Research in New York. @rujutarao l rujutarao.com

About the curators

Sofia Thiệu D’Amico, the Lesley Bodzy Co.curator, is a curator, writer, and researcher based in New York. She is co-director of Transmitter, a collaborative curatorial initiative in Brooklyn, and previously served as assistant curator at Canal Projects. Her work focuses on migration, ritual, labor, and place, examining how artistic practice engages the politics of historical memory through archives, performance, and collaborative research. Her writing has appeared in Hyperallergic, Artforum, Office magazine, and other publications. She holds an MA from Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies, and her research will appear in Borders of Art: Migration, Mobility and Artistic Practice (American University in Cairo Press, 2026). She has been a visiting critic at NARS Foundation, ISCP, Residency Unlimited, Triangle Arts, and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. | @sofia.thieu

Anna Khimasia, the Cynthia Wu Co-curator, is an independent curator and has curated exhibitions and performance events in both Canada and the United States. Her curatorial projects are often collaborative and focus on underrepresented voices and histories. She was the 2023–24 AIRspace Curator-in-Residence at Abrons Arts Center and is a co-founder of International Arrivals (IA), a NYFA-sponsored project supporting artists hailing from countries in conflict. She produces and hosts the IA podcast, which features conversations with international artists about displacement, migration, and transnational belonging. Recent publications include a new essay on Harold Offeh’s early performance video work and an assistant editor role for Kambui Olujimi: North Star, Meditations on Boundlessness. She has taught courses on contemporary art and performance at Carleton University, UCLA, and Rutgers University, where she is currently a lecturer. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture (ICSLAC) at Carleton University. | @annakhimasia_art

About the partners

The Immigrant Artist Biennial is a nomadic platform that presents the work of immigrant artists across diverse formats, including exhibitions, public programs, and publishing. It engages broad national and international audiences while maintaining a strong presence in New York. Through its multi-venue and interdisciplinary approach, the biennial creates space for dialogue, visibility, and exchange, amplifying immigrant voices and fostering connections between artists, institutions, and the public. Founded in 2019 by Katya Grokhovsky, TIAB has shown more than 175 artists, including Bianca Abdi-Boragi, Blanka Amezkua, Felipe Baeza, Marcelo Brodsky, Esperanza Cortés, Linnéa Gad, Maria Kulikovska, Raul de Lara, Jiaoyang Li and Jinjin Xu, Anina Major, Ana Mendieta, Coralina Rodriguez Meyer, Anna Ting Möller, Yali Romagoza/Cuquita the Cuban Doll, Nida Sinnokrot, and Tariku Shiferaw. theimmigrantartistbiennial.com l @theimmigrantartistbiennial

Essex Market is New York City’s flagship public market. For over two centuries, it has nourished the Lower East Side community as an important public asset—a legacy made possible by local activists, past and present, who have fought to keep its doors open. In addition to being a historic public market, Essex Market hosts free public events year-round. essexmarket.nyc | @essexmarket

Since 2023, Essex Market’s Talk & Taste program has dived food-first into the past, present, and future of food culture in New York City. Hosted at Essex Market’s community kitchen, each Talk & Taste evening welcomes historians, food writers, chefs, and cultural experts to join the public in conversation with Essex Market vendors, followed by cooking demonstrations and tastings. Special guests have included New York Times best-selling author Priya Krishna, Top Chef host Kristen Kish, and Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi.

Artists Alliance Inc. cultivates art practices that challenge how we experience ourselves, our communities, and our world through three core initiatives–LES Studio Program, Cuchifritos Gallery, established inside Essex Market in 2001, and Public Works–designed as interconnected stages of sustained arts investment, providing artists with essential resources from the studio to public presentation to civic engagement. artistsallianceinc.org | @aai_nyc

Pinch of Us @ Essex Market is generously supported by Artists Alliance Inc., The Lower East Side Partnership, and The Immigrant Artist Biennial 2026: Identity Card.

Disclaimer/ Liability Waiver

This is a cooking workshop operating in a private setting with participants from the public who will make food alongside each other for private consumption. By participating in this event, you acknowledge and waive certain risks, including but not limited to choking, food-borne illness, allergic reactions, and other potential injuries.

By registering, I agree that organizers (Pinch of Us/Cuchifritos/The Immigrant Artist Biennial) and the venue (Lower East Side Partnership and New York City Economic Development Corporation) are not liable for any harm, injury, or damages resulting from my participation.

*If cost is prohibitive, please reach out directly to gallery@artistsallianceinc.org for sliding scale options.

*Space offered first-come-first-served. Open to all ages, including children accompanied by caretakers.