Chef Tunde Wey at a previous pop-up dinner in Austin, Texas
Heads-up: If you're the type who thinks dinner conversation should steer clear of politics and heated discussion, then the event we're about to highlight is not for you. But if you prefer your meals served with a slice of intellectual debate and action, mark your calendar for Thursday, July 19.
That's when chef Tunde Wey is hosting a pop-up dinner at East Nashville's The Post East called H*t Chicken Sh**t (please note the two asterisks there in that last word, not one. … Sh**t, as a play on words, is a nod to the cooking processes and ingredients of Wey’s native Nigeria). The one-night dinner is part of the Metro Arts Commission's citywide temporary art exhibition, Build Better Tables.
The initiative is part of a desire to expand beyond permanent public art and include temporary and experimental works, says Caroline Vincent, Metro Arts' interim director. (Metro Arts is the city of Nashville's office of arts and culture.) The aim is "to examine urban development and understand the effects of gentrification on community health and wellness," adds Nicole J. Caruth, the curator of Build Better Tables.
Wey and Caruth have worked together before on similar projects in other cities, and Caruth encouraged him to apply to be part of Build Better Tables. She found his approach to dinners "where food is not a medium to comfort, but to confront white supremacy and black experiences" compelling. "And it spoke to my own interests and work at the intersection of food justice and creative practice."
Wey chose The Post East as the place for his conversation-heavy dinner (which is the first of two phases of his work in Nashville) because he felt a community dinner there would have "enough room for conversation to breathe — community dinners begin the conversation about gentrification." The idea is to foster discussion and ongoing action, not to be a one-night, in-your-face confrontation. Wey has done other similar projects in Charlotte, N.C. (with Caruth), Detroit and New Orleans.
Wey says eateries, including coffee shops and specialty grocery stores, "have become weaponized as tools of discriminatory development. These food spaces access artificially depressed property prices, local and inexpensive labor, and our collective bias towards a redemptive narrative."
"Working in, for, and with communities is delicate work." Caruth adds. "[Wey] is skilled at asking questions and listening with intention." She calls this "learning by listening to a multitude of voices."
Expect topics at dinner to cover that Nashville-hot-button issue of tall-and-skinnies (the term has become shorthand for expensive new residential home developments) as well as a critique of the gentrification of black Nashville. Be willing to ask yourself, "What are you willing to do to achieve parity in your community?" Wey encourages. He has some ideas for some solutions in Nashville. The pop-up dinner is only the beginning of the conversation, not the end: Announcement of a second phase of Wey's project, with his ideas, will be made at the event.
Tickets for the H*t Chicken Sh**t dinner are $55 (he calls these "gentrification prices") and must be purchased online. (Vegan menus are available, for those who want to be part of the discussion but have dietary restrictions.) For pre-dinner reading, Wey recommends Steven Hale's Scene piece on North Nashville from earlier this summer.
