Pepi Ng
NYC-based creative technologist,
designer and community organizer
Protest Food
A three-part community-based project about how food can be used as an accessible medium of resistance today.
The three parts are: (1) Workshop, (2) Book and (3) Online Archive
Above: Video explaining PROTEST FOOD
Process
0. Impetus and Inspiration
(a) Thoughts on Foodai. Food is always on my mind.
I created PROTEST FOOD as part of my undergraduate senior thesis project from Parsons School of Design, Design and Technology program. I’ve always been interested in food’s role in providing joy, sustenance, preserving cultural heritage, building community, and resistance movements.
Throughout my life, I find myself gravitating towards activities for the purpose of finding out more about food and its relation to different aspects of society: Growing up in Singapore and Malaysia, food plays a really important role in preserving cultural heritage. During the year of COVID Lockdown, I set up my own online bakery. I went on a two-week Workaway trip to a sustainable farm in Vermont to learn more about regenerative agriculture. In my undergraduate degree, together with my friend Angie Li, we founded a community-based mutual-aid student organization called Frugalicious Mamas, where we facilitated the sharing of food and resources within and outside the university.
aii. Food is always political
Food finds a footing in so many parts of one’s personal, social, emotional and political life- from getting to know someone new over a cup of coffee, to cooking or having dinners with loved ones, to offering food in festivals and rituals, to understanding cultures from the way they cook, to sharing food in ground-up initiatives and political organizing, to mutual-aid kitchens and community fridges, to hunger strikes, to food being cooked and shared during protests, uprisings and revolutions.
Food is a topic of contention because it is necessary for survival. Food is often used as a weapon or control over a population. Food has also been commercialised as a commodity, to drive profit (and exploitation) by greedy large corporations. Access to healthy food and food education is monetized and is weaponized along the lines of race, gender, and class.
At the same time, food has also historically been a subtle vehicle for political expression, often carrying messages of dissent when direct action is risky or repressed. We have seen many communities reclaiming food traditions and customs to heal, connect and resist cultural erasures.
(b) Thoughts on Political Dissent and Protest
bi. I grew up not knowing how to express dissent
I grew up in Singapore, where dissent is rarely seen. Protests are illegal unless organizers obtain government permission—and even then, demonstrations are confined to a single park, effectively undermining the disruptive power that protest is meant to have. All domestic newspapers, radio stations, and television channels are owned by government-linked companies. Legal restrictions also exist around discussing topics such as race and religion, and the government has the authority to remove any content deemed a threat to social, racial, or religious harmony. The government’s firm control over the media has also fostered a culture of fear around expressing political opinions, particularly those seen as dissenting. This has created a panoptican culture where residents censor themselves in fear of community disapproval and scrutiny from authoirities.
I started to reflect on whether dissent in Singapore might find expression through more discreet or indirect means—forms of resistance that are subtle yet still meaningful and accessible to more people.
bii. State repression is a constant, global issue.
Talking about state repression in the United States has never been more relevant than as of right now (2025). There has been a massive crackdown on peaceful protests and any form of dissent under the Trump administration. According to law tracker, with just 3 months in office, the Trump administration has already introduced forty-one anti-protest bills in 22 states. The Trump administration has also deliberately ordered the removal of words to describe communities and identities from public-facing websites or school curricula.
Amidst nationwide university protests and encampments advocating against genocide of the Palestinian people, on March 10, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights threatened to withhold federal funding to 60 universities if they do not comply with the president’s political agenda of restricting Pro-Palestinian activism and free speech on campus, in the name of “anti-semitism”. As of 15 April 2025, the Trump Administration has threatened to withhold $400 million worth of federal funding from Columbia University (Columbia decided to submit to Trump’s political agenda) and $2.2 billion from Harvard University (Harvard resisted Trump’s demands).
At the same time, we have seen many anti-zionist Jews and Jewish students being arrested for protesting the genocide- We have watched videos of masked and plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) abduct and threaten to deport greencard holders and Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Madawi (who was attending his naturalization interview in Vermont), as well as Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk for speaking out against the genocide.
Advocacy for the Palestinian cause is not the only issue facing state repression. The Trump administration is wiping identities away, deliberately divesting from Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) frameworks and initiatives aimed to uplift marginalized voices and communities, limiting academic freedom, moving to impeach federal judges seen to be blocking Trump's agenda.
The list goes overwhelmingly long.
Of course, state repression is not something new, nor is it something only limited to the United States. China’s 2024 National Security Act criminalises any form of political dissent against the Chinese government from Hong Kong; Myanmar’s junta has been expanding its use of deadly force and repressive measures to squelch all dissent; Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad jailed dissenters and used chemical weapons to displace local Syrians in opposition-held territories; Nazi Germany persecuted anyone who were considered “undesirable” and “enemy of the state”.
biii. Expressing dissent can be intimidating.
(c) How Food Plays a Role in Dissent
- Food is something that everyone of all cultures and identities can relate to
- Food is discreet
The goal of PROTEST FOOD is to highlight how food has been consistently used as an accessible and universal entry point into resistance and cultural preservation.
1. Protest Mooncake Workshop
2. Protest Food Book
Making of the book
- Researching, covering as many regions of the world as possible
- Finding contact information
- Sending cold-emails
- Waiting for responses (or no responses)
- Scheduling a time to talk
- Transcribing (wow took so so long)
- Writing, cross-referencing secondary sources of information
- Editing + proof-reading
- Designing!!!
- Lowkey hardest part is finding copyright-free images
- Printing…
3. Protest Food Online Archive
4. Final thoughts
- Limitations
- Want to continue iterating!
5. Credits!