Walker curator Pavel Pyś on Community, Collaboration, and Food

How do members of a community work best together? As we think of vital parts of our own community (a big shout-out to first responders, service workers, medical staff, and other heroes!), we share Side by Side: Collaborative Artistic Practices in the United States, 1960s–1980s, the newest addition to the Walker’s Living Collections Catalogue. Visual Arts curator Pavel Pyś introduces the volume, which “explores the work of artists whose practices were highly collaborative, interdisciplinary, and often aligned with concurrent social movements.” That sounds like just what we need now.

Featured Story: A City Made Out of Food

The role of food seems especially meaningful as we “shelter in place” and share meals with family or yearn for a gathering with friends. The notion of nourishment, through food or through art, is also on our minds right now. Chapter 3 of Side by Side: Collaborative Artistic Practices in the United States, 1960s–1980s tells the story of Haus-Rucker-Co’s Food City I, a participatory event staged outside the Walker in 1971. Food, of course, has featured prominently in art—from prehistoric cave paintings of hunting scenes to a certain big cherry on a spoon, from the still life drawing class’s focus on fruit to feasts depicted in famous masterpieces.

Featured Story: How Tables (and Art) Evoke Community

What would it feel like, especially now, to eat together with our community—thousands of us? In 2014, we looked at two big tables for communal experiences, Seitu Jones’s half-mile long The Community Meal and Theaster Gates’s Holding Court, artworks designed to spark dialogue about “systemic reform, in local foodways and cultural institutions.” As Nicole J. Caruth wrote in “A Seat at the Table,” “The metaphor of the table evokes images of folks coming together to break bread, to discuss personal and political issues, and to cultivate an atmosphere of community.”