A. Quinn Jones Museum Hosts Multicultural Art Exhibit
On Sunday afternoon Gainesville residents gathered at the A. Quinn Jones museum to celebrate cultural diversity through art, poetry and food.
The Gainesville Immigrant Inclusion Initiative (GINI) organized the “A Seat at the Table” event with Art Speaks and Flavorful.
GINI is a collaborative initiative between the city and several local organizations and community members. Art Speaks is a local nonprofit centered on creative arts and poetry. Flavorful is a local West African catering business.
The A. Quinn Jones museum is owned by the City of Gainesville and managed by Gainesville Cultural Affairs Manager Carol Velasques.
Member of the Rural Women’s Health Project and GINI Coordinator Ethan Maia de Needell organized the event. Needell said the two organizations “work to help improve the safety, security, and inclusion of our immigrant community, a community that is under attack at the moment…. This exhibit is showcasing two events we held last year called ‘Recipes for Belonging’ when we brought together U.S.-born and immigrant community members to work on art activities and learn about foods and meals from different cultures…. We’re going to start the day off with an introduction from our chefs.”
Co-Owners of Flavorful Aisse Diallo and Awa Kaba made two separate dishes. Diallo represented her home country of Senegal, making thiou cary, while Kaba represented Guinea with kansiye stew. Diallo said, “We like to blend different cultures so we have cuisine from all over the world, and we make it our own. Thiou cary is one of them.”
Chefs Aisse Diallo and Awa Kaba introduce themselves and their dishes (GnvInfo)
Chef Ivan Perez represented Latino culture and his Puerto Rican roots by making sancocho soup. Perez moved to Gainesville three years ago and started a Latin-Caribbean food business called Taino Roots Artisan Kitchen. Perez said, “There’s different varieties of [sancocho soup] in different countries…. Everybody makes their own version, and today we’re doing it without meat so everyone can try it.”
Chef Ivan Perez tells attendees about himself and his dish (GnvInfo)
Braised Yum owner and chef A. Awasthi made a traditional Eastern food dish, biryani. Awasthi said, “It's a 3,000+-year-old food, and at that time it was given to soldiers. There’s been research on why such delicious food was given to soldiers who were little more than the slave community. They found it's due to the spices; all spices in biryani are anti-inflammatory. If it is cooked properly, then it has significant health benefits.”
A. Awasthi tells attendees about himself and his dish (GnvInfo)
Culinary Crossroads owner and University of Florida Culinary Arts instructor Robert Colon made blackberry cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert. Colon said, “Gainesville locals may know it by a different name, ‘Blackberry doobie.’ It's very similar. The reason I chose the cobbler is because I’m representing the South today. Everyone is representing different countries and cultures today, so this is Southern cuisine.”
Chef Robert Colon tells attendees about himself and his dish (GnvInfo)
Gainesville City Commissioner Casey Willits attended the event. Velasques encouraged attendees to take a survey to convey the importance of the A. Quinn Jones Museum to Willits and his colleagues.
The event highlighted multiple local artists, including poets Deborah Idowu and E. Stanley Richardson, and muralist Turbado Marabou.
Marabou talked about two pieces of artwork he had on display based on the previous Recipes for Belonging event. “These two are divided into culinary origins and influences; we have West Africa here on the left, and on the right we have East India, Puerto Rico, and North Africa. I really tried to bring in certain symbols and images that identify the different cultures and ethnicities, but also the foods and how they’re intersecting across different cultures.”
Velasques said, “We did this [art exhibit] for this event. The idea was they had the Recipes for Belonging in Gainesville and High Springs, and how do we capture that movement?”
The Recipes for Belonging exhibit will be available at the A. Quinn Jones museum through the end of March.
