ARTISTS
Crystal Z Campbell (Tulsa, OK) is a visual artist and writer of African American, Filipino, and Chinese descent, raised in Oklahoma. Campbell uses art and history as tools and materials to rupture collective memory, imagine social transformations, and question the politics of witnessing. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Sculpture Center, New York, NY; ICA Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA; The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY; Futura Contemporary O.s., Prague, Czech Republic; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX; Art Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands; and De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Campbell is a recipient of a Whitney Museum Van Lier Fellowship and a Smithsonian Research Fellowship. She is a third-year Tulsa Artist Fellow.
www.crystalzcampbell.com | @crystalzcampbell
Juan William Chávez (St. Louis, MO) is an artist and cultural activist who devises spaces within urban ecosystems to address and collaborate with others on community issues. His work ranges from developing bee sanctuaries to initiating social enterprises such as the Mobile Honey Market, and renovating abandoned buildings and vacant lots for eco-arts programming. His multimedia sculptural installations focus on themes of the urban environment, ecology, identity, craft, labor, and archaeology of place. Chávez has exhibited his work at venues such as ArtPace, San Antonio, TX; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Charlotte, NC; 21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, KY; Laumeier Sculpture Park, Sunset Hills, MO; and Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis, MO. His interdisciplinary approach to art has gained the attention and support of prestigious institutions like the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and Art Matters Foundation. Chávez holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
www.juanwilliamchavez.com | @jwchavez
Andrea Chung (San Diego, CA) explores themes of labor and materials—how materials are imbued with histories of human transmission—and the lasting effects of colonialism on post-colonial societies. Chung has exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions such as the Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA; Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY; apexart, New York, NY; Deutsche Bank, New York, NY; McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Charlotte, NC; Art House, Austin, TX; Medulla Gallery, Port of Spain, Trinidad; Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, England; Punkt Ø F 15, Oslo, Norway; and the 2017 Jamaican Biennial, Kingston, Jamaica. In 2017, Chung’s first solo museum exhibition, You broke the in ocean in half just to be here…, debuted at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; this year, it will travel to the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis, CA. Her work was recently featured in Prospect 4 New Orleans: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp. Chung is recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, an Art Matters grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant. Her work has been published in ARC, Small Axe, Transitions and Representations, and Huffington Post. She received a BFA at Parsons School of Design and an MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
www.andreachungart.com | @dremae
Seitu Jones (Minneapolis, MN) was the first artist-in-residence of the City of Minneapolis. To date, he has created more than thirty large-scale public artworks, including CREATE: The Community Meal (2014), a dinner for 2,000 people that focused on access to healthy food, and HeARTside Community Meal (2017), a dinner for 250 people that earned Jones the juried grand prize at ArtPrize Nine, in Grand Rapids, MI. Jones is also a recipient of the 2017 McKnight Foundation Distinguished Artist Award, a 2016 Forecast Public Art Grant, and a 2013 Joyce Foundation Award. Working with his neighbors, the Trust for Public Land, and the City of St. Paul, Jones helped to create Frogtown Farm, a certified-organic farm inside a new twelve-acre park in St. Paul, MN. He is currently developing a floating sculpture to act as a research vessel on the Mississippi River. Jones holds a BS in landscape design and an MLS in environmental history, both from the University of Minnesota. In 2002, he was a Loeb Fellow in the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is also a product of the Ramsey County master-gardener program, and he is currently working toward his baking certificate at St. Paul Community College. Jones recently retired from the MFA faculty of the Goddard College department of interdisciplinary arts in Port Townsend, WA.
Norf Art Collective (Nashville, TN) is a multimedia creative team. Norf artists produce public artworks that addresses social issues as well as the cultural and historical aspects of the neighborhoods in which they work. Norf also hosts events to engage community members in conversation and interaction with the arts.
www.norfstudios.com | @norfstudios
Otabenga Jones & Associates (Houston, TX) is an artist collective founded in 2002 by the artist and educator Otabenga Jones, in collaboration with Dawolu Jabari Anderson, Jamal Cyrus, Kenya Evans, and Robert A. Pruitt. The group’s pedagogical mission is expressed in many forms, including actions, writings, DJ sets, and installations. In scope, its mission is three-fold: to underscore the complications of Black representation; to maintain and promote the core principles of the Black radical tradition; and (in the words of the late Russell Tyrone Jones) “teach the truth to the young Black youth.” Work by Otabenga Jones & Associates has appeared in exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; High Museum, Atlanta, GA; The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; and Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX.
www.ojandassociates.tumblr.com
Tattfoo Tan (Staten Island, NY) focuses on issues of ecology, sustainability, and healthy living. Tan’s work is project-based, ephemeral, and educational in nature. His work has been published by Gestalten and Thames and Hudson. He has exhibited at Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY; Eugene Lang College at the New School for Liberal Arts, New York, NY; Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY; Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY; 601 Tully: Center for Engaged Art and Research at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY; Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX; Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ; Project Row Houses, Houston, TX; and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH. Tan’s projects have been presented by Creative Time, the Laundromat Project, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program, and Mural Arts Philadelphia. Tan is widely recognized for his artistic contributions and service to the community. He is the proud recipient of a proclamation from the City of New York, as well as grants from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Art Matters, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, and Staten Island Arts. In 2010, he received the annual Award for Excellence in Design by the Public Design Commission of the City of New York. Tan currently serves on the Mayor’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee to support the development of a comprehensive cultural plan for New York.
Thaxton Abshalom Waters II (Nashville, TN) is a Tennessee native whose father is an artist and mother is a teacher; Waters is following in his parents’ footsteps as a painter and educator. He is the former curator at the Nashville Public Library. His work focuses on the rise, decline, and reinvestment of historic communities surrounding historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). Channeling his love for history and art history, Waters primarily makes collages that distill emblems, chronology, and narrative. He seeks to help viewers understand their communities and to create works that are timeless and informative.
@arthistoryclassllg
Tunde Wey (New Orleans, LA) is the creator of “Blackness in America,” a traveling dinner series that brings people together over meals to talk about racism and systemic injustices. The diners are multiracial, and their conversations cover a variety of Black-specific experiences: feminism, LGBT issues, hair, education, and politics. Wey recognizes the role that food plays in the gentrification and racial coding of a city. Working with researchers at Tulane University, he recently developed a pop-up lunch service in New Orleans, in which the pricing fluctuated based on race and wealth disparity.
COLLABORATORS
The following Nashvillians have generously contributed time and talent to help artists realize projects or public programs for Build Better Tables.
WORKING WITH ANDREA CHUNG
Ashley Couse utilizes her passion for pregnancy, motherhood, health, and wellness at Baby and Company, a modern birth center in Nashville. Couse is a doula, holistic-health counselor, childbirth educator, and the founder of Bloom & Nourish, a wellness resource for women during the childbearing years. Her desire is to support women into the journey of motherhood and encourage them to sustain a lifestyle of wellness.
Taneesha Reynolds was drawn to midwifery as a college freshman; an experience at a women’s conference led her to pursue a career that would touch the lives of women physically, mentally, and spiritually. Reynolds graduated in 2003 from Tennessee State University with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. From Vanderbilt University, she received a master’s degree in 2010, and she holds an MBA with a focus in health-care management from the University of Phoenix. She was part of the groundbreaking team that helped to open Nashville’s only accredited out-of-hospital birthing center, Baby and Company, where she currently practices as a certified nurse-midwife. She is also an instructor at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. As a nurse-midwife, Reynolds has overseen more than four hundred births. Her newest venture to empower women is her video blog, “Don’t Forget Your Pearls,” in which she shares bits of wisdom to help women maximize their potential to create their best lives.
WORKING WITH TATTFOO TAN
Courtney Adair Johnson is an artist and curator who works to create sustainable communities through reuse awareness. She is interested in exploring new ideas with art to generate awareness of our waste and consumption habits. Johnson has led reuse projects with the Frist Art Museum, and Tennessee Craft, both in Nashville, TN, and Springboard for the Arts, Fergus Falls, MN. She is presently the gallery director of Tennessee State University Art Department and a co-builder of the McGruder Social Practice Artist Residency (M-SPAR). Follow Courtney on Instagram: @courtneyadairjohnson.
WORKING WITH THAXTON WATERS
Fred Bailey is Waters’s mentor and the director of the McJimpsey Center. Bailey grew up on a farm in Gallatin, Tennessee, not knowing he was blind. Following interactions with a teacher, a doctor, and his father, he learned how to find strength in his limitations. Now he strives to pass on his tenacity through his Children Are People afterschool program.
Dr. Corey Batson practices family medicine in Nashville. Four years ago, he received his degree from Meharry Medical College. His goal is to inform disadvantaged communities of healthy lifestyle habits and of the benefits of establishing trusting relationships with physicians.
Viktor Le Givens is a multimodal performance artist whose practice centers on what he calls “culinary theater,” gathering and arranging ancestral objects while offering Southern cuisine and drawing connections between these elements. He conveys magic, reverence, and mystery in his food, installations, objects, and writings. Givens has performed widely, from France to London to the backwoods of Alabama.
Robert Rooks is a professor of literature and creative composition at Fisk University, Tennessee State University, and Nashville State College. He is also a co-director of Epicenter, a program focused on college-access services for youths and families. As a guest speaker, he will offer insight on how legislation trickles down from the national to the local level.
Indigo Tucker is an object archivist who examines the complexity of urban development in relationship to Black cultural production and the family unit. As the preparator, he will bring his passion for object collecting, interior design, and hospitality to the project.
Eric Willingham is a Nashville-born videographer and photographer. Willingham’s work covers an array of genres, including architecture, fashion, and conceptual photography. He draws inspiration from twentieth-century photographers such as Eli Reed and Gordon Parks.
WORKING WITH TUNDE WEY
The Housing Fund provides resources and creative leadership to help individuals and communities create and maintain affordable and healthy places in which low and moderate income people live. Since its incorporation in 1996, THF has assisted over 3,300 first time homebuyers receive over $22 million in down payment assistance loans, as well as providing more than $40 million in financing to assist individuals and organizations purchase, rehabilitate, or construct homes for low and moderate income families.
William A. Radford is the President/CEO of AMPM Solutions Incorporated, an asset management and project management corporation specializing in public-private partnerships. Radford is a licensed commercial and residential contractor, LEED accredited professional, and a US Navy veteran. He is co-founder of NIA House Montessori School, and serves as a co-pastor at the Village Church PCUSA. Radford's work in business management and as an entrepreneur allows him to merge his passions for technology, education, real estate, food, and community organizing.
Loveland is based in Detroit, Michigan and the San Francisco Bay Area with a growing team dedicated to putting America online parcel by parcel. Loveland works with governments, developers, neighborhood groups, and passionate individuals to gather and present information about property in clear, actionable ways. In Detroit, their community missions include arming people with information to battle a plague of tax foreclosures and running an ongoing survey of property conditions to help fight blight.