Sweet Corn Summer Table

Saturday, August 5, Forge Project will host a summer table revolving around Indigenous foods and the opportunities for connection through community-stewarded knowledge that they offer.

Hosted at our Community Learning Kitchen, guests will be fed through the generous collaboration of Ansley Jemison and Miles Van Dusen, whose seasonal menu highlights regional and diasporic foodways connected by corn and supports experiential understandings of the importance of sharing a table.

Throughout the afternoon, Peter Jemison and Lucille Burr Grignon will share reflections on their experience with culturally rooted agriculture and food sovereignty as methods of community care, intergenerational collaboration, cultural resurgence.

This event is open to all ages and families are encouraged to attend.

Please wear shoes and clothing you feel comfortable walking and spending an afternoon outdoors in!

About the participants

Lucille Burr Grignon (Stockbridge-Munsee/Menominee) is an enrolled member of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican Nation and a direct descendant of the Menominee Nation. She is an Indigenous seed-saver, educator, knowledge-keeper, an advocate for preserving Stockbridge-Munsee foodways, and 2023 Forge Project Fellow. At Ancient Roots, her family’s Indigenous Homestead in Bowler, Wisconsin, she and her family research traditional gardening practices and use these methods to learn, preserve, grow, seed-save, reconnect, and share.

Peter Jemison (Seneca, Heron Clan) is a culture bearer, educator, curator, writer, and artist whose visionary efforts over decades have helped lay a groundwork to center Indigenous worldviews. Coinciding with his long tenure as the site manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site and work with the Iroquois White Corn Project in his New York homeland, Jemison’s collaboration to facilitate a space grounded in culture and vital programming related to culturally rooted education, food sovereignty, and creative practice continues to have a transformative impact on the region’s Indigenous communities.

Ansley Jemison (Seneca Nation, Wolf Clan) serves as the Cultural Liaison at Ganondagan State Historic Site through the Natural Heritage Trust of New York State. Ansley is a member of the Seneca Nation and is originally from the Seneca Allegany Territory of Western New York. He is a graduate of Syracuse University, where he earned a degree in Communications and competed for the nationally ranked men’s lacrosse team. Ansley enjoys traveling and spending time with his family, videography and short documentary production, Indigenous studies, Indigenous foodways and cooking.

Miles Van Dusen has been a chef professionally for over 14 years. When he found himself unemployed during the Covid-19 pandemic, Miles worked to use his skills as an act of preservation for communities at risk of losing their culinary traditions, particularly those generationally impacted by colonialism and slavery. Through collaboration with Ganondagan Historic Site and the Iroquois White Corn Project, his culinary experience is used in service to co-curate menus that celebrate their food systems using heritage ingredients. Miles is supported by his wife and business partner, Amy, whose daily demonstration of love and care inspires him to nourish the world in small ways every day.