Space Meal
An earthly dinner of interplanetary provocations
Menu by Tessa Liebman of Methods & Madness
Presented in conversation with The Tropics, The Moon, and Mars by Mari Nagem
Date: Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Time: 6:00–9:00 pm
Tickets: $60–$100 sliding scale; free for CUE members (see here and below)
Join us in the gallery for Space Meal, a multi-course dinner by artist and chef Tessa Liebman of Methods & Madness, presented in conversation with Mari Nagem’s solo exhibition The Tropics, The Moon, and Mars.
The exhibition moves between a hyper-heated Earth and speculative environments on the Moon and Mars, considering transformations to bodies, materials, technologies, and living systems as they encounter new conditions. Space Meal brings these provocations to the table; food is equally subject to adaptation: it can be preserved and dried, carried from one context to another, altered by heat, shaped by available resources, and informed by the tastes and habits we develop along the way.
Developed in response to works in the exhibition, the menu draws from homegrown culinary traditions alongside ingredients and techniques that evoke changing landscapes, imagined ecosystems, geological time, and new and longstanding technologies. Each course will be situated in direct relationship to the spatial and conceptual environment of the exhibition, temporarily transforming the gallery and offering a sensory and embodied exploration of taste, texture, and place. Throughout the evening, questions of preservation, migration, and survival ground our perceptions of ecological change.
Space Meal does not propose a menu for outer space. Instead, it begins here on Earth, where the conditions of life are already shifting. What foods and practices might endure? And even as we imagine new futures, both here and elsewhere, what familiar tastes, desires, and contradictions will we insist on bringing with us?
Space Meal is a ticketed dinner that includes seven vegetarian food offerings and light drinks. Tickets are available at sliding scale pricing from $60–$100 per person. The true cost of the dinner is approximately $100 per guest; please select the ticket price that best aligns with your ability to pay. All proceeds support expenses and labor by Methods & Madness and CUE Art. Members of CUE enter free (sign up here and indicate your RSVP upon registering).
Capacity is limited, and tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Please note that this is not a seated dinner. Guests will move through the gallery over the course of the evening, with food presented in relation to works in the exhibition.
Tessa Liebman is an artist and chef who has been cooking in her hometown of New York City for over fifteen years. She specializes in conceptual, multisensory, and interactive dining experiences. Alongside catering and private client events, she created the ticketed dinner series Methods & Madness, working with artists translating their work into edible experiences. She also founded the conceptual project, Scents of Plates, which explores the human senses through food and fragrance to translate stories, ideas and memories from one sense to the other. Liebman has led workshops on food, the senses and storytelling.
Methods & Madness produces small dinners, larger catered events, workshops, and experiences that engage the senses through the eyes, nose, taste, touch, and sound. Through Methods & Madness, Liebman hosts a dinner series as a way to collaborate with creative friends outside of the kitchen. She has worked with typographers, collage artists, illustrators, perfumers, baristas, foragers, and printmakers to produce intimate, often interactive dinners with menus informed by the artists’ processes (their “methods”) and inspiration (their “madness”).
Mari Nagem (b. Belo Horizonte, Brazil) is a multidisciplinary artist conceptually driven by the relationship between nature and technology. She has been awarded numerous international fellowships, commissions, and residencies, including: S+T+Arts Buen-TEK Residency (Rome, IT and Fortaleza, BR, 2026); a public commission for COP30 by the Tomie Ohtake Institute for the Emílio Goeldi Zoobotanical Park and Museum (Belém, BR, 2025); commissions for Mostra 3M (São Paulo, BR, 2024) and SFER IK Museion (Tulum, MX, 2024); the Celia and Wally Gilbert Fellowship at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (US, 2024); the New York Foundation for the Arts Immigrant Artist Program (US, 2024); and the Ox-Bow Program Fellowship (US, 2022). She has been nominated for and received awards from Ars Electronica (S+T+Arts, 2026 and CIFO, 2024), the Pipa Prize (2024), and the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize (2021).
Nagem has participated in Latin American biennials, including Bienal Sur at the Macro Museum (Argentina) and the Digital Art Biennial (Brazil). She has had solo exhibitions at Cave Galeria (Fortaleza, 2026), Galeria Lume (São Paulo, 2024), and Paço das Artes (São Paulo, 2022), among others. Her work has been shown at Tomie Ohtake Institute, SESC, Oi Futuro, MAC Niteroí, the Museum of Image and Sound (BR); MESH Art Center, Selva, Berry Campbell Gallery, Flatiron Project Space, New York Live Arts (US); Savvy Contemporary (DE); Sea Foundation (NL); and festivals such as FILE, Die Digitale Düsseldorf, and Athens Digital Arts Festival.
Nagem’s projects and exhibitions have been featured in Art Dialogues Magazine, The Art Newspaper, Arte!Brasileiros, Estadão, Revista Select, and Brazil-based cultural television network Arte1, among others. She holds an MFA from the Haute École d'Art et Design de Genéve, and currently lives and works between New York and Brazil.
Related Exhibition
To learn more about The Tropics, The Moon, and Mars, a solo exhibition by Mari Nagem, see here.