Join MOFAD x Body Politic for a workshop and panel discussion interrogating the connection between food, self-care, and the wellness industry. The evening will explore community-building and nourishment, examining how the concept of “wellness” intersects with food.
Panelists will discuss wellness language, which is often used to police the way women, queer folks, and other marginalized populations engage with food; how we can reconcile interests in food and self-care in the face of diet culture and prescriptive wellness; and the barriers the food and wellness industries face toward inclusivity and accessibility.
BODY POLITIC
Body Politic is a queer feminist wellness collective, events series, and media company aimed at creating content and events on accessible wellness for marginalized populations. Our programming focuses on the intersection of wellness and politics, and under-discussed issues in wellness, such as the way wellness intersects with gender, sexuality, and race, among other topics.
LIZ ALPERN
Liz Alpern is the creator of Queer Soup Night, a global event series highlighting the talent of queer chefs and raising funds for locally-based social justice organizations. She is co-author of The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods(Flatiron Books, 2016) and co-owner of The Gefilteria, a food venture that’s been reimagining Old World Jewish Foods since 2012. Liz received her MBA from Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business and is on the faculty of the International Culinary Center's Entrepreneurship program. Her passion for food extends to the world of food systems, and she serves a consultant for national non-profit organization, Fair Food Network. Liz has been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List and was selected for The Cherry Bombe 100 in 2018.
GABRIELA ALVAREZ
Gabriela Álvarez is a chef and entrepreneur. Her work around food justice and wellness began while she was a student of Community Health at Brown University. She went on to study the culinary and healing arts at the Natural Gourmet Institute in NYC. Gabriela cooks in spaces of self-determination, healing, community celebration, and cultural preservation. Her menus and projects reflect her own identity as a DiaspoRican and the communities with whom she collaborates. In 2014 Gabriela founded Liberation Cuisine with the intention of nourishing movements for social change with sustainable ingredients and practices.
WOLDY REYES
Woldy Reyes, a college graduate decided to move to New York City to pursue a career in fashion. Reyes worked in the editorial departments of Elle and Nylon magazines and for designer Phillip Lim. After six years in the fashion industry, he longed to make a career change to pursue his passion as a chef dedicating himself in the ethos of local and seasonal eating. Starting small, Woldy catered for his fellow fashion colleagues, which led to starting Woldy Kusina, a boutique catering company that has been featured in goop and New York Magazine as one of New York top caterers. Most recently, he’s been exploring and modernizing his approach to Filipino cuisine which has been featured in the New York Times and the TODAY show. As the son of two Filipino immigrants Woldy learned and was inspirited by his family, especially his Lola (grandmother) and father. Woldy’s father taught him the importance of foraging, bringing him to local farms, to find the freshest Californian ingredients. While his grandmother, Dominga imparted on him the love of preparing a dish and the narrative in all Filipino cuisine. He has shared his new approach of Filipino food at a community lunch at Pioneer Works and hopes to continue to share his food culture.
ORA WISE
Ora Wise is a chef and consultant whose work centers food justice and community empowerment. She consults with food businesses and nonprofits looking to both talk the talk, and walk the walk— developing programs, projects and systems based on equity, sustainability and solidarity. Her work includes founding The Dream Cafe, an experimental pop-up restaurant in collaboration with chefs and farmers of color in Detroit; producing the I Collective’s first Thanksgiving pop up which offered an alternative narrative focused on the resilience, history, and foods of indigenous peoples; serving on the board of El Departamento de la Comida, working to rebuild Puerto Rico’s local food system sustainably; and serving as Culinary Curator of Queer Anga, a queer & trans wellness collective. Ora’s work is grounded in the belief that investing in community controlled and regenerative food systems strengthens liberation movements.
RAINA ROBINSON
Raina is a cook, farmer, and creator from the Bronx, NY, with an immeasurable love of food, people, and cooperatives. Raina hopes to one day open a farm, restaurant, and education center on the farmland her grandmother grew up on in Jamestown, South Carolina. She has cooked with worker-owned food cooperatives Woke Foods and Khao’na Kitchen, and farmed at Snug Harbor Heritage Farm and Soul Fire Farm. She continuously works to protect and share the beauty of Earth’s bounty with others through cooking.
ANNA LIPIN
Anna Lipin is interested in what constitutes true wellness and self-care in the age of #wellness and #selfcare, and whether the fatphobia inherent to much of the wellness industry can be overcome. She wrote her college thesis on how [racialized and gendered] anti-fat bias in the medical industry, political system, and alternative food movement together lead to public policies that hurt everyone. In college, she worked for the Yale Sustainable Food Program, which is the center of critical thinking around food systems on Yale’s campus. Anna is headed to law school next year and is thinking about the legal and political effects of fatphobia, the economic ideology that put the onus of "wellness" onto individuals, and whether the FDA will ever regulate the supplement industry.