My investigation started with the understanding that mobility is the act of “unrooting” oneself from an original environment to a new one for any reason. Perception of being and belonging becomes altered when we are forced to migrate and create a temporary, and at times artificial, environment that becomes further complicated with the constraints and possibilities of a new place. The use of the plantain in all my meals in versatile ways has established its importance in my everyday life as well as becoming a remedy for my longing to return home. Memories are intertwined in the act of cooking it with the traditional movements in preparing empanadas, dumplings, and pancakes that I learned from my mother and grandmothers. This intervention that has evolved through this awareness is one that equips those who have been “unrooted” to create an artificial environment for the growth of vegetation that represents a person’s connection to home.
The migration of people has been a constant influence in the infrastructures of cities, especially in New York. Historical moments like the Great Migration of Black Americans from the South and the creation of El Barrio in East Harlem demonstrates the foods that provided comfort for those who resettled. Despite the restrictions in establishing these traditions of food, restaurants found in Harlem today demonstrate how the ritual of cooking responded to this new space, and how the space responded back, ultimately showing its interdependence. The transformation of these kitchen spaces can be imagined through the traditions of sharing recipes and cooking collectively, influencing me to rethink the kitchen as a space of resistance and collaboration between those who share history and the looming danger of losing their space due to gentrification. My intervention becomes a space where the possibility of bringing the displaced together, as well as assembling new ecological systems, becomes a response to the existing conditions of Harlem’s urban landscape in the creation of rooftop greenhouses and a system of balconies to grow plantains in the community.
