This body of work chronicles a few of the local foodways of Chestertown, Maryland, through images taken during a 6-week artist residency with the Kent Cultural Alliance. The work examines how food is a cultural archive and a connector between communities, particularly in a town influenced by histories of race, labor, and land.
Situated on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Chestertown wears the stamp of a multifaceted past. For centuries, dark-skinned residents toiled in its fields, kitchens, and oyster vessels—frequently without pay or recognition. Their agricultural expertise, cuisine traditions, and communal culture were implicit in developing this corner of the state’s bountiful food culture. But these contributions have long been marginalized and unacceptable.
While only in Chestertown, MD., for a short while, my task is to help reshape this story by capturing people, places, and traditions marking Chestertown’s landscape today. It tracks food through the farm to the schoolroom, through garden beds to shared tables. Included in this pictorial record are farmers who care for land with purpose, young people learning to harvest their first crops, and a next generation of individuals who feed themselves without dependence on commercial agriculture and state control.
These pictures are not staged or idealized. They are genuine moments—of labor and learning and nourishment. They show us how food is and continues to be a powerful means of maintaining culture, disseminating history, and building bridges in segregated or marginalized places.
In this context, Chestertown is a space of both historic disparity and new potential. Documenting its food systems is a way this work pays homage to the resiliency of melanated and rural communities while demonstrating how mutual labor and shared meals have the potential to break down old barriers. Food is more than a necessary daily consumption in this instance—it is a communal necessity for potential transformation.
