Much Ado About Yam is a digital zine that traces the yam’s history across the Black diaspora and its relevance to architecture and building materials. The project highlights the yam as more than an ingredient for a meal, it spurred communal social gatherings, held significance in traditional rites, was stacked as a fundamental structural component in yam barns, and provided enslaved people with the means to earn income for self-emancipation. Unlike the colonial framework of separating plant from man and object from context, this zine seeks to create an honest archive of yam histories from a social, cultural, spatial, and material perspective. This project is funded by NYSCA and the Architectural League of New York.

Click here to follow the yam trail.