Tattfoo Tan

Collaboration creates the opportunity to open up other possibilities and perspectives. I love how the issues we are working on are not just conceptual but real, and how it is both public and personal, looking at the larger system of food distribution as well as how food influences our body and mind. We need to heal the man in order to heal the land. -Tattfoo Tan

Tattfoo Tan participates in CALL/CHINATOWN. Tan’s project WuXing Oracle Cards highlights local Asian produce and connects food to concepts of healing in traditional Chinese medicine. Over a few months, Tan created beautiful watercolor oracle cards and worked with TCM practitioner Donna Mah to explore the healing properties of each featured item of produce. People may use the deck to explore these ideas and share recipes and food memories with community members.

Tan and ecologist Stuart Gaffin led a 2014 CALL/WALK through Manhattan's Chinatown to highlight the creeping gentrification and to explore connections between economy and ecology. In 2020 he hosted a virtual lunch hour with Donna Mah to discuss the role of food in traditional Chinese medicine.

Tan has been widely recognized for his artistic contributions and service to the community and is the proud recipient of a proclamation from The City of New York. He has also received grants from Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Art Matters, Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, and Staten Island Arts. In 2010, Tan received the annual Award for Excellence in Design from the Public Design Commission of the City of New York for his design and branding of the Super-Graphic on Bronx River Art Center. He currently serves on the Mayor's Citizens' Advisory Committee to support the development of a Comprehensive Cultural Plan; he also serves on NYFA's Artists Advisory Committee.

WuXing Oracle Cards, 2020

Healing: Food & Our Future, August 13, 2020

How do the foods we eat contribute to our healing, and the healing of our communities? Tattfoo Tan and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Donna Mah explore the healing properties of foods, specifically focusing on asian produce. Tan illustrates this produce, with their benefits in a tarot deck, WuXing Oracle Cards.

This project is part of CALL // CHINATOWN, a larger initiative of artist and scientist led collaborations that delve into the ecological, and cultural landscape of Chinatown.

CALL/WALKS Broadway: 1000 Steps — Fall 2014

Artist Tattfoo Tan and Ecologist Stuart Gaffin lead a walk to find material resources in Chinatown in order to fill one’s emergency bag with high end and low brow items. The walk started at Mulberry Street and headed west to Church Street. They stopped at a crystal shop that takes Kirlian Photography and shows your aura and Micro Museum, located in a freight elevator. The WALK ended at Best Made Company. The WALK highlighted the gentrification creeping into Chinatown and the deep connection between an economy and an ecology. Some of the central questions addressed were: How has the production of a multitude of objects become a burden to ecology? How can we reset our worldview to be effective in changes?

This walk is a part of CALL/WALKS, an ongoing series of artist and scientist led public walks diving deep into urgent, local environmental concerns and innovative ideas to overcome them. This particular walk connects to CALL’s larger initiative in the Broadway: 1000 Steps