76: Cosmos to Kitchen - Embracing Spirituality through Mixed Media Food Projects with Simone Johnson

When the pandemic started, I put out a call to anyone who had their conference or public talk or event cancelled, to see if they wanted to share some of the foundational ideas from those events in podcast form. My guest this week is Simone Johnson, who took me up on the offer after her guest talk on fermentation was cancelled. Something I always marvel at is how many folks I get to meet and connect with through this show I wouldn't have otherwise, and I'm always so thankful for it. Simone is an interdisciplinary artist based in New York City with a background in urban agriculture and performance art. Over the last couple of years, she has gravitated toward the culinary art world, seeking to cook with friends and help prepare community meals in art spaces. Simone started Cosmos to Kitchen in 2017, and over time it has become a long term mixed media project that mainly focuses on cooking and other topics like foraging and wild foods, seed stewardship, zero waste, energetics, sensory studies, somatics, movement and the body. Through hand made and digital collages, photography, audio recordings, sound art and writing, Simone captures these areas of study mostly through a spiritual lens, embracing uncensored 'woo woo' ways of knowing and art-making. These topics are also explored through personal, cultural/ancestral, political and ecological viewpoints. She's on today to share some of the lasting lessons and experiences she's had in the Cosmos to Kitchen project, and showcasing how spirituality, art, and food can all work together to create some powerful and beautiful knowledge. Social: Instagram: @cosmostokitchen Website: https://dancewithsimone.wordpress.com/what-is-cosmos-to-kitchen/ Fermentation Materials: MARSH: Materializing and Activating Radical Social Habitus (where I was going to perform) From Birth, Our Microbes Become As Personal as a Fingerprint  Forget Fingerprints--in the Future We'll Be Identified by Gut Bacteria  What ancient African fermentation techniques reveal about probiotics Fermentation is back: how will living organisms reshape your plate? Universe in a Jar: Fermentation makes a comeback