Created for the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art’s 50th Anniversary exhibition, A Place at the Table, this installation is inspired by Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1974–1979). While Chicago honored women omitted from history, this work pays homage to immigrant mothers whose acts of care, resilience, and cultural preservation have shaped Los Angeles.
At its center, a table runner carries the word “mother” in fifty languages, honoring women who carried traditions, recipes, languages, values, and memories across borders and passed them to future generations.
I imagine Los Angeles as a shared table—a city built by people arriving from around the world carrying pieces of home. The installation brings together 30 objects from 30 immigrant communities across Los Angeles, gathered from local neighborhoods over three days. Bowls, plates, cups, textiles, and utensils become markers of distinct cultural histories.
The work embraces bricolage: constructing new meaning from existing materials. Removed from their original contexts and assembled into a single place setting, these everyday objects form a new visual language. Individually, they speak of heritage and memory; collectively, they reflect a city shaped by migration, cultural exchange, and coexistence.
Across the Shared Table invites viewers to recognize that every culture has a place at the table—and to honor the immigrant mothers who helped prepare it.