Alien Archive is a research-based project exploring how the history of the dumpling tells us about migration and adaptation. Unlike potsticker or wonton, "dumpling" is an English word - one that has traveled from referring to simple English doughs to becoming most frequently associated with Asian wrapped foods. That shift was not accidental. It was made by waves of migrants who carried, transformed, and reclaimed the form across centuries. The dumpling has always been a vehicle that enclosed the alienated, acting as object, metaphor, and cultural lens through which identities are shaped, shared, and archived.

Alien Archive unfolds across multiple components and formats, each approaching that history from a different angle: archival research, material artifacts, AI-assisted quasi-museum image-making, and communal cooking. Each component operates at a different register: material, visual, communal, analytical...But they share a single argument: that tradition is not inherited intact. It is constructed by people who cross borders and remake what they carry. The dumpling is evidence of that remaking. So is the word.
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Alien Archive is ongoing, continuing to grow as new recipes, histories, and communities enter the archive. If you are interested in hosting an event or collaboration, I would love to chat.

The project began with historical research tracing how the meaning of “dumpling” evolved through migration, adaptation, and cultural negotiation. Analyzing English-language sources from 17th-century pamphlets to contemporary cookbooks, the research reveals how recipes have encoded shifting power structures and identities - from early American “tomato dumplings” as symbols of nationalism to Wontons as Chinese-American “stuffed dumplings” as quiet acts of assimilation. These texts also reflect the presence of alien objects - foreign ingredients, unfamiliar techniques- that later become naturalized.

The material component of Alien Archive takes the form of resin-cast dumpling sculptures — dumplings reconstructed from historical recipes, then preserved in translucent resin. Suspended between food and object, perishable practice and permanent record, they function as inedible capsules of cultural memory. In their most recent iteration at the Jersey City Public Library, the sculptures are paired with booklets documenting their recipes, sources, and authors — a drawer-based installation that invites handling and close reading alongside the artifacts themselves.

Three Feasts is a triptych of period-inspired images created through archival research and AI generation. Each panel revives a historic dumpling recipe drawn from 18th, 19th, and 20th century sources, rendered through AI-generated imagery, digital fabrication, and preserved food elements. Presented in a quasi-museum setting, the panels appear in chronological order, tracing the etymological evolution of the word "dumpling" and the shifting meanings it has carried across time. The work also reflects on generative AI as an averaging tool: one that can flatten cultural specificity while paradoxically extending access to overlooked archival knowledge.

The participatory experience component of Alien Archive centers around this adaptive potential of life. Each experience is site-specific, designed to evoke creativity, playfulness, openness, and experimentation.

Participants are invited to reflect on the central question: what is a dumpling? The first gathering took place in a university classroom as a casual, drop-in format serving over 50 participants. The second, hosted at the Museum of Food and Drink, was more intimate, with fewer participants engaging in slower, repeated interactions. Iterations were made learning from the first experience. For example, the second experience provide excerpt of stories from historical cookbooks placed next to the ingredient included. In both, ingredients were selected for their historical references and material versatility - chosen like color swatches in a palette.