Social Practice, 2025-2026
Supported by McCook Community Kitchen, Nebraska Arts Council, Graff Charitable Foundation, and the Mathews Foundation.

​

KNOW-HOW: MCCOOK involves a one-year collaboration with area farms and growers, care homes, and residents of McCook, Nebraska. Core collaborators included Joann Falkenburrg, MD, Chef Damon Little, Busy Bees Garden and Greenhouse, Sawline Apothecary, and area care homes Kinship Pointe and Hillcrest Nursing Home, with contributions from Heritage Senior Center, Buffalo Commons, 4-H, Common Scents Greenhouse & Nursery, and Hoyt Farm.

The project initiates the circulation of tacit knowledge about food, health, and care. Like muscle memory, tacit knowledge is stored in the body and accumulates through sensory, tactile, and relational experiences. It largely evades linguistic and text based archiving which is particularly relevant for cultivating intergenerational knowledge.

 

The project develops over four phases. 1) Oral histories are collected from elder care home residents and community members, tracing  how tacit knowledge is evoked through storytelling. 2) This knowledge informs hands-on workshops at care facilities, activating muscle memory and generating further knowledge. 3) Interactive installations sharing these remedies were presented at Hillcrest Nursing Home, Kinship Pointe, and ArtBank, creating a visual, living archive that remixes and returns this knowledge to its originators. 4) A community Remedy Meal brings care home residents, art audiences, and local food producers together for face-to-face connection.

 

The project ultimately aims to make small interventions within the town, engaging with care homes and food producers to actively share and circulate tacit knowledge through interactive formats. 

​

Mobility-inspired remedy workshops at care homes were led by Martha Callahan,  Emily Goeppinger (Sawline Apothecary), Joann Falkenburg, and Jody Wood. Chef Damon Little created the Remedy Meal menu inspired from mobility remedies in McCook.