For our 7th annual food justice event, the University of Dayton’s Dietetics Program and Department of Art and Design partnered with Dayton Regional Green to investigate topics ranging from troubling histories of parks, yards and lawns, to diverse cultural arenas of outdoor dining.

For DDK VII: Whose Lawn Is It Anyways? UD alums Grace B. Poppe (‘16) and Annie Denten (‘19) question our very relationship to the ground beneath our feet with photo-based works documenting cross-cultural culinary spaces in California and New York. From Prospect Park to Pacific Beach, the artists bring us scenes of community BBQs, neighborhood pho shops and busy street fairs, as well as glimpses into more dystopian spaces that reveal the waste and want rampant within our food system. Working alongside other dietetics students, Chef Christina Green joined us for the third year in a row to create flavorful moments that reveal overlooked indigenous histories of common fruits, veggies and picnic fare. Artist and UD Associate Professor Glenna Jennings lends her curatorial direction and design, bringing East Coast and West Coast to meet in the middle, where we reckon with legacies of human impact on both the environment and one another.

In 2023,, DDK took a hiatus from our usual fundraising activities to focus on deep discussion with our partners and the public about how art and design can best serve food justice work. But Desert Kitchen never stops making art! We continue to partner with Gem City Market, CO-Op Dayton, Latinos Unidos, Unified Power and The Hanley Sustainability Institute as we work towards bringing back our larger event next year.

DDK is made possible with funding from the University of Dayton Department of Art and Design, The Office of Experiential Learning, Culture Works, and The Ohio Arts Council.