Portraits of Food Activists

Amanny Ahmad

Chef, artist, and writer Amanny Ahmad is a NYC-based food activist, plant enthusiast, and passionate cook. Born in Utah to Palestinian immigrants, Ahmad’s work focuses on indigenous culinary traditions with wild foods and on foraging as a method of survival. Ahmad’s artworks also contributed to the study of Palestinian food culture and were included in the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library in Battir. Through her focus on food and conceptual art and love for nature, she created her language to communicate the possibility of more conscious and meaningful relationships with people and earth.

Pierre Thiam

Pierre Thiam is a Senegalese NYC-based chef, restaurateur, social entrepreneur, and culinary ambassador of West African cuisine in fine dining restaurants worldwide. He is the executive chef at award-winning Nok by Alara in Lagos, Nigeria, signature chef of the five-star Pullman Hotel in Dakar, Senegal, as well as the executive chef and co-owner of Teranga in New York City. Founder of Yolélé Foods company and author of The Fonio Cookbook (2019), he is an advocate of smallholder farmers of traditional African crops and of cooking diversity.

Pashon Murray

Pashon Murray is an educator and environmental activist at Detroit Dirt. The company converts waste into high-quality compost for local urban gardeners and farmers and reduces carbon footprint. With her work around organic waste recovery and reuse, she promotes zero-waste models within the food industry.

Nikko Masumoto

Nikko Masumoto is a 4th generation farmer, artist, and cultural organizer at the Masumoto Family Farm in Fresno, California. She is the co-founder of the Yonsei Memory Project, an inter-generational space for Japanese American memory keeping. Her work also includes tours at her family peach-farm as an art experience. She also advocates gender and cultural diversity in the farming world.