Umami food and art festival, 2010

February 24th through March 14th, 2010

New York City

New York, NY. In these difficult economic times Umami food and art festival demonstrates that art is not a superfluous luxury, but an integral part of daily life. The three-week festival will feature a variety of downtown venues, hosting cutting edge performances, academic panels and workshops providing food for thought, and a range of palate teasers. In its second year, Umami demonstrates that art can be created with the simplest means and the most common materials, and that food does not have to be consumed in a fine dining setting to be a source of pleasure and inspiration.

Umami kicks off on Wednesday, February 24^th with FoodFashion a collaboration with Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, at Astor Center for Food and Wine, featuring a recreation of artist Robert Kushner’s provocative produce fashion show and an exciting debate on the complex and problematic relationship between food and fashion. A full program of events is available online at www.umamifestival2010.com, and includes artist Diane Borsato following in the steps of John Cage with a mushroom hunt in Chinatown, chef Chewy Cereceres of Macao Trading Co. offers his own take on mushrooms at the James Beard House, a live simulcast of short food performances accompanied by a tasting of new cookery by chefs Nils Noren and David Arnold of the French Culinary Institute at Eyebeam center for art and technology, a screening of short artists’ food films, artist Sarah Klein’s Bread Project, a cooking challenge for teams of culinary students exploring the art in cooking, children’s workshops, and an Urban Garden Roundtable bringing together artists, chefs, growers and community activists.

“By bringing these artists together with culinary professionals through performances, discussions and workshops, we wish to expose them to new audiences while stirring a debate around the role of food and food professionals in our society. Our intention is to use art to increase awareness of the power food has to influence and shape both diners and cooks,” said festival director Yael Raviv.

For more information contact Yael Raviv yael@umamifestival.com Tel. (917) 720-5706

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About Umami:

Umami was created in 2008 as a non-profit biennale event. It offers a meeting ground to people who use food as a medium and who present their audience with a multi-sensory experience in the dining room, or gallery space. The festival’s objective is to open avenues of collaboration between these artists and culinary professionals. Choosing food as a common thread allows Umami to present new ways to look at art and to integrate art into daily life. Umami offers an environment for non-commercial, time-based art and encourage artists who work with non-traditional mediums and forms.

High resolution photos from Umami 2008 are available for press.

Umami is excited to be collaborating this year with the NY Food Museum and to support its mission to “encourage people think about the food they eat.” The festival benefits from the aid and support of a variety of food and art organizations and businesses such as The James Beard Foundation, The Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health Department at New York University, Gastronomica Magazine, the Experimental Cuisine Collective, Franklin Furnace, Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology, Astor Center for Food and Wine, Tom Cat Bakery, Murray’s Cheese Shop, Unilever, Whole Foods Market, Employees Only, Ithaca Beer Co., and others.

* Umami is the fifth taste sensed by the human tongue (in addition to sweet, salty, bitter and sour). Umami is a Japanese word meaning “savory” or “meaty” and applies to a sensation common in meats, cheese and other protein-rich foods or to “earthy” foods such as mushrooms and soy sauce.