Living Archives: Finding Stories of Plants, Peoples, and Places is an undergraduate course I designed to facilitate student relationships with the planet by encouraging student development of personalized genealogies from family narratives, historical migrations, and plant relationships. Students experimented with growing plants from seed and propagation while researching and writing aspects of their family and cultural narratives through the plants and foods that shaped them.
The course was titled Geopositioning Genealogy: Personalizing Histories of Plants, Peoples, and Places from 2023-2024.
2023
Zine Acknowledgements:
Five cultures
Seven medicinal foods
Nine ancestries
The eight recipes in this zine offer a snapshot of the diverse backgrounds of my students and illustrate the vast global community of plants and people collectively circumnavigating the planet for tens of thousands of years.
Please enjoy their stories and their learnings.
I am deeply thankful for everything they taught me this semester. Through their introspective investigations into their family and cultural narratives, I gained much insight into human perseverance, ingenuity, and culinary creativity!
All the Best,
Tanika I. Williams
May 2023
2024
Zine Acknowledgments:
A class like this happens once in a lifetime.
You all are the type of students that inspire me to continue to show up and show out as an artist and educator.
From intriguing Lower East Side Tenements to serene cherry blossom-covered lawns at the Botanic Garden, every week was a thrilling adventure we shared.
You delivered insightful, introspective ideas and playfully curious artwork.
Thank you for sharing chai, eating jerk chicken by the roadside, enjoying Haitian pate walking down the street, and devouring a feast of Nyonya cuisine in front of the ancestor altar at Kopitiam.
Most importantly, thank you for raiding your parents’ closets and rocking their fashions to class, for going through their archives and bringing family photos to class, and for having the sometimes-difficult conversations needed to learn about who you are and what your fore-parents went through for you to be here.
For everyone else—enjoy these timelines and the stories and recipes within them.
Always,
Tanika I. Williams
May 2024
2025
Zine Acknowledgments:
Each of you showed up week after week with the stamina, steadfastness, and vigor that affirms the necessity of academia and confirms that institutions of higher learning are still spaces for growth and development.
In the midst of looming threats of erasure, you all responded with carefully crafted family narratives that were well-researched, empathetic tributes to your people.
Keep the information and insights shared during class with you. Use what you gained to continue scaffolding your family narratives. Remember–you are truly seeds planted in faith and watered with hope, the dreams, and the daring of your ancestors.
I am incredibly humbled to be in the presence of students like you who are actively embracing the power of living as future ancestors. Thank you.
Always,
Tanika I. Williams
May 2025
