Kultura Festival to be back with Fil-Am cuisine, art in Chicago

Kultura Festival 2017 will be at Logan Square’s Emporium Emporium Arcade Bar, September 24. WEBSITE

CHICAGO—A contemporary Filipino American food and arts festival will take place at Logan Square’s Emporium Arcade Bar (2363 N. Milwaukee Avenue) on Sunday, September 24, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Kultura Festival is carefully curated to appeal to those who personally identify with Filipino culture and the merely curious or uninitiated. It highlights the best in Filipino American food and arts in Chicago and around the Midwest.

Kultura Festival also signals the start of Filipino American History Month, a nationally commemorated holiday every October since November 2009, with the passage of US House Resolution 780 and Senate Resolution 298.

Food and art will be offered at Kultura Festival Chicago. WEBSITE

The festival will showcase Chicago and Midwest-based Filipino American eateries and chefs such as Hapa Chicago, Meat on the Street (Milwaukee) and Sarap Detroit (Detroit), Guerrilla Street Food and Skip To Malou (both from St. Louis), as well as Chef Sharwin Tee of Lifestyle TV’s Curiosity Got The Chef (Manila).

Additional chefs and the full festival menu will be announced soon. The curated menu promises to tantalize festival-goers with a wide variety of chef-prepared Filipino and Filipino-inspired dishes between $5 and $7 each.

Filipino American artist-entrepreneurs will offer their unique wares for purchase at the festival: custom tailored barong Tagalog (traditional formal wear) from New York City-based Pineapple Industries; artwork, books and apparel based on the pre-Philippine script, baybayin, from San Francisco-based expert Kristian Kabuay; clothing, jewelry and accessories centered around indigenous symbols and spirituality from Los Angeles-based Ginto Seeds.

This year, Kultura Festival patrons can learn about the connections between Filipino cuisine and culture. Admission to the Lechon Lectures, hosted in adjacent The Upside Down pop-up bar, is included in the Kultura Festival ticket. Two-time Hugo award winning editor of Uncanny Magazine Michi Trota leads a panel discussion on the role of food in science fiction and fantasy storytelling and how Filipino creators in these genres integrate food and cultural identity into their own work.

Descriptions of the full Lechon Lectures lineup and schedule will soon be announced. As in previous years, Filipino American DJs will provide the soundtrack for the festivities (schedule TBA).

Kultura festival general admission tickets are available for $20 ($15 ticket plus 5 Kultura dollars) online athttps://ti.to/filipino-kitchen/kultura-2017.

Discounted general admission tickets are available for students with ID, senior citizens with ID, and children under 13 years of age. More information can be found at https://filipino.kitchen/kultura-festival/#kultura-festival-2017.