Community Café: Just Food
It’s been a while since we’ve had a Community Café folks. But, worry not, this is all because we’ve been busy planning and IMAN’s Department of Arts and Culture has a lot in store for 2012 and beyond. First on our list is the February 25th Community Café: Just Food. That’s right, along the lines of our work on food justice through the Muslim Run: Campaign for Health, Wellness, and Healing, as well as building off last year’s events such as Community Café: Healing Planet Rock and Healthy Eats, Conscious Beats, we are dedicating this Community Café to a basic human right – access to fresh, healthy food for all people regardless of where in our city or world they live. This issue is real on a daily basis for many people – whether it’s dealing with the food deserts on Chicago’s South and West Sides or famine in Somalia. Community Café hopes to address some of the issues people are dealing with as well as highlight IMAN’s own local work on food justice.
We’re of course championing this cause with a dynamic line up of artists. From DC, our featured artist is Maimouna Youssef who herself is a big proponent of the food justice movement, as you can see for yourself in her recent video challenging Monsanto and genetically modified food. We also have, all the way from the UK, the duo Native Sun featuring Mohammed Yahya making his first IMAN appearance. But it wouldn’t be Community Café if we didn’t feature some of our own homegrown talent too – Zain Lodhia and on the 1’s and 2’s Ms. Dia. Last but not least, we have some very special guests dedicating pieces to the “Just Food” theme – Rhymefest, Mikkey Halsted, and Kuumba Lynx!
But, musicians and performers aren’t the only type of artists at this Café. Since the theme is equal access to food options… we’ll have a number of food samples, vendors, and culinary artists in store. The staff and volunteers at IMAN have spent a lot of time planning an event that really hits on our different senses and still drives home our basic theme around food justice. For those that want to take it a step further, we will offer a workshop the next day.
So, mark your calendars now and arrive early because you know space will be limited, and join us on Feb 25th at the Living Room Lounge – 1100 W. Cermak for another edition of… Community Café!
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