Isabel Lu

Isabel Lu, MPH, RD, is an artist and researcher based in Raleigh. They were one of the 2023 Emerging Artists-in-Residence at Artspace, where they are now a studio artist.

Isabel grew up creating, but took a pause when they entered college. Interested in understanding food systems to nurture ourselves and our communities, Isabel studied nutritional science at Cornell University and then public health and dietetics at UNC Chapel Hill. While applying for doctoral programs, they found their way back to art as a way to process questions and experiences around food, health, and identity that academic research couldn't measure.

Today, Isabel works at the intersection of art, community engagement, and public health to understand individual and collective wellbeing. Isabel’s individual art practice focuses on self-exploration through the lenses of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Isabel works with Ina Liu and Sophie To on an oral history and community-driven mural project, called Asian Joy. Isabel is part of a collective of researchers, social activists, and artists, called Art as Method, using art engagement as a method of research to understand BIPOC experiences in our food system.

Photograph by Danny Peña

With special performance by Ina Cariño. Originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, Ina Cariño is a 2022 Whiting Award winner for poetry. Their work appears in the American Poetry Review, the Margins, Guernica, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Magazine, the Paris Review Daily, Waxwing, New England Review, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2021 Alice James Award for Feast, published by Alice James Books in March 2023. Their forthcoming collection Reverse Requiem is slated for publication in April 2026 (Alice James Books).

In 2019, Ina founded a poetry reading series called Indigena Collective, a platform that aims to center marginalized creatives in the NC community and beyond.

Photograph by Sass Art.

CreativeMornings Raleigh and Raleigh Pride came together to recognize and celebrate the LGBTQ+ creative community. This event was one of the last of a month full of exciting events highlighting and contributing to the texture of our LGBTQ+ community through education, awareness, and entertainment.