The National Bitter Melon Council (NBMC) is a project that uses bitter melon as a symbolic medium to explore bitterness—in taste and in feeling—under the motto "Better Living Through Bitter Melon." Operating as a fictional council persona, the project proposes alternative approaches to social systems: CSA, homeopathy, community gardens, and guerrilla gardening.

Through Sifting the Inner Belt (2004), I encountered a community garden in Boston's South End—a neighborhood grappling with gentrification. In the 1970s, immigrants had occupied vacant lots left by stalled urban redevelopment, transforming them into gardens growing produce from home. Noticing the high production rate of bitter melon—a clue to the area's Asian immigrant population—I began to see the potential of layering residents' bitter feelings with an exploration of bitterness itself. With grants and awards that followed, the project took shape as the National Bitter Melon Council.

Co-founded with fellow artists, NBMC has since expanded internationally—through product and recipe development, "Bitter Market Research," museum exhibitions across the US and beyond, and collaborations with nutritionists, homeopaths, architects, and communities—always with humor at its core.