Spring 2012 Fellow
Fellow: Tracy Candido
Project: The Youth Food Lab

about The YOuth Food Lab

The Youth Food Lab was a project in service of positive social change in the LGBTQ teen community. Blurring the lines between art, politics, and daily life, the Youth Food Lab was a series of workshops for LGBTQ teens that used food and creativity as vehicles for personal growth and transformation. The Youth Food Lab was created as a response to the anti-bullying campaign, “It Gets Better," recognizing that change will come with time. Candido sought to empower LGBTQ youth now, using and understanding food as a revolutionary tool for individual health and vitality and for the strength of their community. 

The Youth Food Lab brought together LGBTQ culinary and agricultural experts, including a chef and a farmer. to teach workshops held at The Door about topics such as sustainable food, cooking with healthy recipes, food history and cultural traditions, food journalism and photography, and sustainable agriculture. The Youth Food Lab helped introduce LGBTQ teens to the queer food world in NYC, and helped them see a future in creative food through positive and affirming role models. 

artist bio

Tracy Candido is a cultural producer and designer that creates public projects ranging from highly participatory artworks to social events. Candido’s work focuses on the intersection of visual culture, social networks, gastronomy and pedagogy. She sees her work as crafted experiences that use objects and traditions of the everyday to analyze the politics and practices of our world. Candido has presented public projects in and around NYC, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art and at the New Museum; curated interdisciplinary exhibitions and public programs for chashama, New York University and Secret Project Robot; and worked at various arts and cultural institutions to develop and implement special projects, public programs, and exhibitions. As a museum educator, she has developed and taught educational programs at the Brooklyn Museum and the International Center of Photography. She is also a founding editor of 127 Prince, an online journal about socially engaged art, where she edits the occasional column titled "Instructions For Eating" featuring artists' experimental food essays. She has also facilitated extensive research on the history of participatory art and actively studies new scholarship in the field, contributing texts to Art21.blog, NYFA Current and Culturehall. Candido holds a Master’s Degree from New York University in Visual Culture Theory and a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Media Arts with a focus on film and video production from Emerson College.