Stir the Pot is an Unstoppable Voters Project – a series of Center for Artistic Activism supported works that ensure every vote is counted in the 2020 U.S. election, relieve tension, and build healthy institutions in the aftermath.
Stir the Pot
Stir the Pot is a combination potluck series-civics lesson-activist training that uses the joy of food and cooking as a launchpad to making broader change. Connecting to one another, making collective meaning, and equipping each other with an understanding of their own power through food is the antidote to a chaotic political moment and to nourishing the futures we’d like to live in.
Led by Nadine Nelson and Austin Bryniarski
Chef Nadine Nelson, Green Queen of Cuisine, is the eco chef and social entrepreneur of Global Local Gourmet, a roving community supported kitchen. Chef Nadine was born in Toronto, Canada of Jamaican Heritage. She has always loved cooking and her vegetables. She has studied the culinary arts in Paris at the Ritz Escoffier, has a certificate in food styling from the New School and a certificate in fundraising and philanthropy from New York University in New York, and earned a teaching degree from Tufts University in Boston, consequently she brings a worldly perspective to seasonal food.
She is a social activist, cooking instructor, chef, writer, recipe developer/tester, food consultant, experiential epicurean event producer and culinary artist. She is an expert in interactive cuisine and has worked with such clients as Harvard University, The Apollo Theater, the City of New Haven, Boston Office of Conventions and Tourism, The National Park Service, The Food Project, Disney, Bain and Company, Columbia University, International Association of Culinary Professionals, and the Tobago Jazz Festival designing and delivering cooking classes, culinary team building, wellness workshops, culinary tours, and epicurean event planning.
Austin Bryniarski is the Chair of the The New Haven Food Policy Council. The New Haven Food Policy Council is a volunteer advisory board for the City of New Haven. The eleven Council members are New Haven residents, appointed by the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen. They are a collaborative group working to address local and regional food issues and the impacts on individuals, communities, businesses, the environment and local government.
Unstoppable voters projects throughout the country relieve tensions and look to the future as every vote is counted.
Experts predict that election returns will be slow and chaotic. Artists are preparing by answering critical questions: How can we counter tension, fear and potential violence? How do we inspire resilience and hope to defend the basic tenets of democracy? How do we respond with so many unknown factors?
The Center for Artistic Activism’s Unstoppable Voters Project has gathered a group of artists and culture makers who know how to transform emotions and support a weary nation through early voting and the transfer of power during a challenging election season. As the nation awaits election results and their aftermath, projects will help folks relieve tension on the streets, at counting sites and in their homes, with Counting Cheerleaders, the creation of Social Emergency Response Centers, of-the-moment songs created and distributed by the Peace Poets, and continued performances by Emergency Circus and dancing mailboxes Delivering Democracy, among other projects.
This post was originally published on News – The Center for Artistic Activism.
