“Tasting Cultures: The Art of
African/American Foodways”
Free Public Opening: June 2nd 2009, 6:30-8pm,
Avery Research Center for African American History
and Culture at the College of Charleston, SC
Runs June 2nd- September 7th 2009)
The artists’ exhibit will provide engaging multimedia works that represent the numerous contributions African culture has made to the African Atlantic world as it relates to ethnobotany, food, and culture.
This exhibition is part of a major conference on the numerous contributions Africa has made to the African Atlantic in the form of ethnobotany, food, and culture. Organized by Professor John Rashford, The College of Charleston is hosting the Society of Economic Botany’s (SEB) 50th anniversary conference on “African Ethnobotany in the Americas” and foodways are a vital part of this theme. Oral histories related to foodways—home remedies, recipes, culinary practices, farming and foraging practices, and the environments that gave rise to these traditions—are rich areas of traditional ecological knowledge, and Charleston and the South Carolina Lowcountry represented one of the major entry ports for Africans who were brought specifically because of their extensive rice-growing expertise.
The “main course” for this exhibition is the art of several African and African American artists inspired by their foodways and personal relationship with the land. The artists are: Sonya Y. Clark who, working with rice and beans, offers work that evokes her mother’s kitchen and favorite recipes, as well as sacred traditions of Yoruba people from West Africa; David C. Driskell &em; distinguished artist and scholar of African American art and an avid chef and gardener &em: has created a series of printed works infused with the spices and fibers of his youth; Amos P. Kennedy Jr., printer and book-maker extraordinaire who is passionate about okra, has produced a series of prints with humor and wisdom; Kaylynn Sullivan Twotrees, visual and performance artist of Native American, European, and African descent, has created a series of handmade papers infused with beeswax and honey collected from all over the country to reflect our dwindling pollinators and the fate of our lands; Michele Tejuola Turner, renowned for her unique carved and painted gourd sculptures, has created memorials to her mothers a nd grandmothers, and to the land of their birth; and Bolaji Campbell, former Avery Research Center Fellow who now teaches at RISD in Providence, RI, has done a series of paintings on foods for the gods (orisa) among his ancestors, the Yoruba.
Read more about the participating artist…
 | Sonya Clark |  | Michelle Tejuola Turner |
 | David Driskell |  | Amos Paul Kennedy |
 | Bolaji Campbell |  | Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees |