Ridwana Rahman

Artist Statement

A mother’s mother sends her over to the new western world with a suitcase full of spices you couldn’t find at an American grocery store in the 70’s: tamarind and turmeric, coriander root and cumin. A mother packs her entire life and everything she can make it into a carry-on, and when she arrives on new land, it’s what brings her the most comfort. Copying down her mother’s family’s recipes onto scrap newspapers over the phone, making them for herself, and then her husband, and then her daughters, she finds ease in the familiar. Every time my mother helps me pack my car to drive back to college, she slips in at least two grocery bags of rice and chicken and salads and her current cooking experiment. Every time she helps my older sister move into a new city, she buys her a rack of cheap spices, just something to start her off with.

In their article, Radical Culinary Love: Cooking as Healing Praxis in the Time of COVID-19, OSU grad student Sharadha Kalyanam writes about how the kitchen can be the “site of nostalgia, longing, and belonging.” They write about how cooking has proven to be a centuries-long practice that brings people together and acts as a form of healing for many Indigenous, queer, Black, and immigrant of color communities, especially now within the United States. Communities actively engage in self and mutual healing within the kitchen, as well as assert themselves as individuals.

The immigrant’s suitcase connects her with her mother, with her mother tongue; it connects her daughters with herself. Comfort Food is about the connection and softness, between families within themselves, between families and others.

Ridwana Rahman | Portland, Oregon

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