GYOPO x SSI YA GI Story Sharing Meal and Panel Discussion

Saturday, June 25 | 6:00 – 7:30 PM
CultivaLA Westlake Community Garden
599 Columbia Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90017

Featuring panelists and collaborators:
Katherine Kim, Koreatown Storytelling Project
Mina Park, Shiku, Baroo
Jose Miguel Ruiz, CultivaLA
Hannah Pae, Ssi Ya Gi, TERREMOTO
Moderated by Ginny Hwang, Jogamdo

Join us to learn more about and participate in an intergenerational project that centers on community empowerment and cultural memory. This day holds special meaning for Koreans in the diaspora because it marks the 72nd anniversary of the Korean War, a still unended conflict that continues to reverberate in and beyond the Peninsula. Food – specific dishes, as well as particular plants and seeds – embodies rich stories of how elders survived the armed conflict and its aftermath, and the memories they hope to share with younger generations. After the panel discussion and during a garden reception, all in attendance are invited to share food memories with GYOPO and Koreatown Storytelling Project volunteers who will be collecting oral histories for the GYOPO x Ssi Ya Gi archive.

Ssi Ya Gi and GYOPO have initiated a long-term collaboration with a first phase which includes collecting oral histories from seniors who live at Saint James Manor, Los Angeles (through a partnership with Koreatown Youth + Community Center), Rose of Sharon and Baywood Apartments in Oakland (through a partnership with the Korean Community Center of the East Bay), and growing and sharing Korean heirloom vegetables (provided by Second Generation Seeds), with the support and partnership of CultivaLA, in their MacArthur Park community garden.

GYOPO is a collective of diaspora Korean cultural producers and arts professionals generating and sharing progressive, critical, intersectional and intergenerational discourses, community alliances, and free educational programs in Los Angeles and beyond. Our programming aids in the expansion and deepening of our collective understanding of Korean diasporic identity.

Ssi Ya Gi records and amplifies senior immigrant memories about food as a platform to forge intergenerational connections and uncover rich narratives that would otherwise be lost to history.

CultivaLA’s mission is to transform healthy food access and wellness through people, social enterprise, and environmental justice.

This program follows a private meal for the elders who shared their stories with us this Spring. Zines created by collaborators and community members and inspired by the selected stories of Choi Mi Ja, Kim Young, Kim Young-Sook, Lee Gil Ja, and Jen Shin. Purchase a zine here!