Zhuochen/Stella Gong

How does the dynamic formation of recipes reflect individual's journey in adapting their new enviornment? 

This project explores the intersection of food, culture, and individual memory, investigating how recipes can serve as narrative vessels for personal journeys of adaptation in unfamiliar environments. It begins with a handwritten recipe booklet from my grandmother, gifted to me when I first left home to live independently in London. From this intimate starting point, the project traces my evolving relationship with food as a means of navigating a new cultural landscape.

Here, recipes are not merely culinary instructions—they carry the warmth of emotional memory and the subtle traces of cultural migration. They become critical touchpoints in understanding the process of "adaptation" on both a personal and anthropological level.

The final publication takes the form of a French fold book, where each recipe is paired with hidden diary fragments tucked within the folds. These personal notes introduce an emotional and introspective dimension to the narrative, inviting the reader to look beyond the surface of food as sustenance. The book concludes with a series of blank recipe pages, encouraging audience participation and co-creation, further enhancing the project’s open-ended and interactive nature.

This practice speaks to individuals who have experienced cultural displacement or independent living, transforming intimate observations of everyday life into a visual and narrative form of social anthropology. Through an autoethnographic approach, the work seeks to evoke emotional resonance among those who share similar experiences of relocation, adaptation, and the search for belonging.