Alien Archive
Una Zhang
Advisor: Theo Ellin Ballew
Alien Archive investigates dumplings as tangible expressions of cultural adaptation and identity formation, revealing how the unfamiliar, the alien, is folded into shared experience and archived into collective memories.
Project Description
Alien Archive is a multi-part project that uses the dumpling as a cultural lens to explore how identities are constructed, shared, and remembered. The project unfolds across three interconnected components: research, experience, and material artifacts—together forming an ethnography of the dumpling as a migratory and wildly adaptable carrier that traverses borders and cuisines, wrapping in layers of personal experience and collective memory.
The project began with a process of digital archival research, tracing how dumpling recipes are remembered and changed. Using only internet-accessible sources, the research investigates what gets included, what is lost in a dataset. 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 experience component of the project surfaces this adaptive potential of life. Each experience is site-specific, shaped 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. In both, ingredients were selected for their historical references and material versatility—chosen like color swatches in a palette.
The final part of the project consists of resin-cast dumplings as sculptural artifacts collected in an archive. Ephemeral acts like making and eating were encapsulated to solidify something inherently impermanent. Each cast becomes a physical anchor—an alien object suspended between memory, matter, and myth.
Technical Details
Research:
Conducted historical analysis using digitized English-language cookbooks and pamphlets from the 17th century to present, accessed through online archives and library databases.
Experience Design:
Involved culinary preparation, spatial planning, and facilitation of a participatory cooking event. Required coordination of ingredients, tools, and layout for a temporary communal kitchen setup.
Artifacts:
Used dehydrators and resin casting to preserve dumplings. Incorporated 3D modeling and printing, microcontrollers (Arduino), and RFID tags for interactive display. Visual elements were created using Adobe Creative Suite and AI-based image generation tools.