Public programs
francesca ekwuyasi: “Zobo”
Thursday, November 12 at 12:00 PM and at 6:00 PM
At the Gallery
Free, in English
Join writer, artist, and curator francesca ekwuyasi for an event in which she will prepare and share hibiscus tea known as Zobo in Nigeria. She will make Zobo according to her grandmother’s recipe and share stories about her. Participants are invited to enjoy a cup of Zobo with francesca, ask questions about the recipe, and share their own recipes and/or stories of their grandparents and what they learned from them.
Presented in the context of FOODWAYS in dialogue with Patrick Cruz’s Kitchen Codex, 2021.
Read morefrancesca ekwuyasi is an artist and writer. She is the author of Butter Honey Pig Bread and co-author of Curious Sounds: A Dialogue in Three Movements. She won the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBTQIA2S+ writers and has been short and longlisted for the Lambda Literary Award, the Governor General Award, the Amazon First Novel Prize, the Giller Prize, and the Dublin International Literary Award and others. francesca has participated in residencies at the Khyber Centre for the Arts, ARTEXTE, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the Centre for Arts Tapes. She has been a writer in residence at Queens University and the University of Winnipeg. francesca’s visual art, short films, and writing have been shown and screened at Hermes Gallery, Nocturne Halifax, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Black Film Fest, Durham Region International Film Festival (DRIFF), and elsewhere. She curated Burnt Sugar (2024) and Burnt Sugar Blue (2026).
She lives between Montréal and Halifax.
CloseGuided FOODWAYS Tour & Teatime with the JIA Foundation
Monday, November 23, 2026 at 3:00 PM
At the Gallery
Free, in English and in French
Come for a guided tour of the exhibition FOODWAYS and stay for some tea and snacks with the team from the JIA Foundation and learn about their work in Montréal’s Chinatown in a casual and festive setting.
On So-Called ‘Primitive’ Coagulation: A Gelatinous Lecture-Performance by Sara Clugage
Thursday, November 26, 2026 at 6:30 PM
At the Gallery
Free (by registration), in English
Join New York-based artist and writer Sara Clugage for a performative lecture that examines gelatin the polarizing wealth distribution in Europe and its territories. The lecture will be accompanied by a miniature, gelatinized, complete meal.
In late eighteenth century, jelly became a way to imagine life at scale in a new economic world order. Expanding systems that organized bodies—imperial regimes and burgeoning global capitalism—required new ways of thinking about flesh en masse. This performative lecture will examine gelatin at both ends of a rapidly polarizing wealth distribution in Europe and its territories, from architectural jelly molds on elite banquet tables to French government experiments with gelatin in workhouse soup pots. It argues that the texture of capital accumulation is primarily gelatinous—that as homogenized bodies are rendered abstract, from a certain distance, they appear refined.
Read moreSara Clugage is a New York-based artist, writer, and editor who focuses on economic and political issues in craft and food. She is the author of many essays and one monograph: New Recipes: Cooking, Craft, and Performance (2022), from the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. She is currently at work on a book about Jell-O, animacy, and abstraction.
CloseGUIDED EXHIBITION TOUR IN ARABIC
Saturday, November 28, 5:30 PM
At the Gallery
Free (by registration), in Egyptian Arabic
Join educator Sara Meleika for a guided tour and an informal exchange in Arabic around the exhibition FOODWAYS. A light, catered meal will be served following the tour. For any questions, please contact the coordinator of public programs and education (prakash.krishnan@concordia.ca).
Artwork Activations by Dean Baldwin Lew, francesca ekwuyasi, and others
Integral to food cultures are the embedded aspects of community, gathering, and sharing. Throughout the exhibition, artists will be invited to activate the Gallery and the works by way of activations, tastings, performances, and more. Stay tuned for activations to come.
Read moreDEAN BALDWIN LEW – GRAPE REPORT
Throughout FOODWAYS, Dean Baldwin Lew’s installation Wine continues to evolve as the Gallery is temporarily reappropriated as a working micro winery. Using grapes harvested from a reserved row in Niagara, Ontario, Baldwin Lew is carrying out the stages of vinification within the exhibition space, allowing the work to respond to the changing conditions of its living and perishable materials.
Following heavy rain before the harvest, some of the grapes arrived with broken skins, making them particularly vulnerable to spoilage. Rather than bringing intact clusters into the Gallery as initially anticipated, Baldwin Lew immediately macerated the harvest into must: a mixture of grape juice, skins and seeds. As the exposed juice began to oxidize, he adapted the process again, pressing part of the harvest earlier than planned to extract fresher juice from the grapes that remained intact. The remaining grapes continued to macerate for several days before undergoing a second pressing.
These stages have also produced grape pomace: the skins, seeds and pulp remaining after the juice has been pressed. Instead of disappearing immediately as waste, the pomace has temporarily entered the installation itself. The remnants of the two pressings are visibly distinct and carry the smell of the fermenting fruit into the Gallery, making perceptible a material byproduct of winemaking that is rarely encountered as part of the finished product. Perishable by nature, the pomace will eventually leave the Gallery and return to the waste or compost stream.
Fermentation is now underway, and Wine will continue to transform over the course of the exhibition. As Baldwin Lew tends to the grapes and responds to the unpredictable processes of fermentation, oxidation and decomposition, we will continue to document the work’s evolution through periodic reports from the Gallery.
CloseOPENING RECEPTION AND MEET THE CURATOR
Thursday, September 10, 2026, 4:30 PM – 7:00 PM
Free, at the Gallery
Join curator Zoë Chan & participating artists for a guided tour of FOODWAYS at 4:30 PM, followed by an opening reception. Selected artworks will be activated with themed bites from Lahmajoune Villeray. Come meet several of the exhibiting artists and celebrate with us!
This event is also presented as part of La Rentrée Concordia 2026, a cultural program organized in collaboration with the FOFA Gallery. Visit both galleries to mark the launch of their respective fall exhibitions and meet the artists in attendance.
Paul Wong in conversation with Nelson Henricks
Friday, September 11, 10:00 AM–11:30 AM
At the VA-114 Cinema (1395 Boul. René-Lévesque Ouest, Montréal, Room 114)
In conjunction with FOODWAYS, Canadian artist Paul Wong will speak with Nelson Henricks and discuss his historic and contemporary explorations of the video medium. The videos Blood Brother (8 mins, 1976/2024), Winners & Losers (7 mins, 2024), and Mother’s Cupboard (13 mins, 2020) will be presented.
The event is organized for students in the course Video History and Theory, but other guests are welcome.
Early bird special: Guests arriving at 9:30 AM will be able to see Wong’s video in ten sity (mix), (25 mins, 1978/2008).
SCREENING: DAL PURI DIASPORA (2012) BY RICHARD FUNG
Tuesday, September 29, 6:00 PM
At the J.A. DeSève Cinéma
Free, in English and Bhojpuri with English subtitles
Shot in Toronto, Trinidad and India, this documentary tracks dal puri’s remarkable passage across space and time, linking colonialism, migration and the globalization of tastes.
PERFORMANCE: aWOKENING BY WINNIE HO
Wednesday, October 21, 6:30 PM
At the Gallery
Free, in English
An immersive sensorial experience of sound, smell and touch over metallic landscapes, Winnie Ho engages in wok chi (鑊氣) a defining feature of Cantonese cuisine.
Read moreWinnie Ho is an interdisciplinary dance performance artist who was born in Hong Kong, and currently resides in Montreal. Her work embraces multiple disciplines including immersive installations, sculpture and dance. Weaving in various materials onto her body and inventing queer folklore/mythologies have been the fore-front of her dance making practice. Presently, she is reflecting on her Chinese diapsora by exploring grief, pleasure and play as both a personal ceremonial practice and a public performance. Winnie was awarded the Laureate of the Power Prix 2022 scholarship award at La Centrale Gallarie Powerhouse in Montreal. She was also the recipient of the 2017 Danceweb Scholarship Program at Impulstanz Festival in Vienna.
CloseThis series of public programs accompanies the exhibition FOODWAYS, presented at the Gallery from September 1st until December 5th, 2026.