COMIDA, CONVERSACIÓN Y COMUNIDAD (FOOD, CONVERSATION, AND COMMUNITY)
About the Installation
EAST JORDAN MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL
ESTABLISHED CA. 1891, EAST JORDAN, MICHIGAN
East Jordan is a town in northern Michigan with approximately 2,239 residents. Over recent decades, the seasonal agricultural industry and other factors have attracted a small but growing group of Spanish speakers from Latin American countries and the southern United States to the area. Angela Barrera, a Spanish teacher at the East Jordan Middle/High School, observed that numerous students were unfamiliar with the Latino community, while many Spanish-speaking parents felt uncomfortable participating in traditional school activities. Students also recognized a lack of meaningful opportunities for engagement. In response, a student-led initiative emerged in 2023, focused on cultivating connections through culinary and linguistic exchanges. With events such as Noche Latina (Latino Night), the students’ work extended beyond the school, attracting participants from the broader region. Through videos, photography, and drawings, Comida, conversación, y comunidad tells the story of a changing community coming together, highlighting themes of home, belonging, and the power of youth collaboration.
Visual Description: Gallery
Comida, conversación y comunidad is an installation that spans the entire length of the ground floor gallery hallway. The wall-to-wall rug is checkered in a light and dark pattern and the walls are a pattern of light and dark gray vertical stripes that blend into each other giving an illusion of a hung curtain. Spread out along the center of the gallery are three fabric-covered seating platforms. The smaller wall at the end of the gallery introduces us to the installation with a message on the wall in large bold font— “Look around your community and consider how you can participate in positive change.”
There are two videos installed on opposite ends of the gallery, one on each wall. Across from the label plinth, a large vertical screen stands in front of the wall with the video Comida, conversación y comunidad. The other video, What is Home?, plays on a monitor at the opposite end of the gallery. Interspersed across each of the long gallery walls is an array of informational signs; quotes; drawn portraits and; images of the East Jordan, community; graphically designed colorful ovals placed like stickers on the walls. The two biggest ovals in shades of blue and red overlap each other with the title of the installation, Comida, conversación y comunidad, Food, Conversation, and Community. Some of the multi-lingual smaller sticker-like ovals are in blue, pink, green, and yellow read “Building Community,” “Commongrounds Cooperative,” “The Process,” “2.7% Latino,” and “Total Population 2,239.”
There are frames pencil drawings hung in a row, each with three pencil-drawn portraits of community members from East Jordan. A sign with a quote from the artist and student, Luis Carlos Cheves, reads “I drew these portraits to preserve the memory of the power of togetherness we had among each other.” We also see students and community members in photographs showing them shopping for food, cooking together at a long table, and studying at school on laptops, with post-it notes on a white board in the background. Each sign and quote give context to the images and are duplicated with a version in English and a version in Spanish. To name a couple, a quote from Cheri Leach, co-Founder of Ravel Hill Discovery Center, explains, “I think the project gave the students a sense of community bigger than themselves and their school. They got to see other families and participate in something that is going to stay with them for a long time because it has been a different experience for the students.” Another sign with the header “Gathering Ingredients” reads, “Once the students and other community members Identified food as a way to connect, they went on an outing to T. C. Latino, an international grocery store located an hour’s drive from East Jordan. The students learned about the produce, spices, and other ingredients used in cuisines from countries throughout Latin America.”
Audio Description: Comidad, Conversación Y Comunidad – With Audio Descriptions
Acknowledgements
Student collaborators include Roberto Ambrosio, Steven Anderson, Skylar Barnett, Kendra Behrendt, Isadora Boyer, Samantha Burks, Ezequiel Molina Chévez, Luis Carlos Chévez, Lindsey Cross, Mailey Hamilton, Madlyn Hardy, Elke Knauf, Lila Kelly, June Kirkpatrick, Ryder Malpass, Jonathan Morales, Jonathan Ringstrom, Alyssa Sherman, Sophia Snyder, Rachelle Villarreal, Kamryn Webb, William Webb, and Christine Whitaker. Student videographers Nick Bascom and Cole Hatfield. Student reporter Leah Marquardt.
Family and community collaborators include Rosa Ambrosio, Jose Ambrosio, Alelí Barrera-Bardeguez, Mike Behrendt, Sandra Behrendt, Angélica Chévez, Rosa Chévez, Luis Chévez, Vanessa Chévez, William Molina, Monica Rueda, Ana Villarreal, and José Villarreal.
Cinematography by Xhosa Fray-Chinn and Patrick Downer. Video editing by Khoo Guo Xiang.
Special thanks to Abner Bardeguez, Angela Barrera, Savannah Erxleben, and Melissa Lyons at East Jordan Public Schools; Cheri Leach at Raven Hill Discovery Center, East Jordan; Adolfo Méndez and Sandra Rios at TC Latino Grocery, Traverse City; Providence Farm, Central Lake; and Commongrounds Cooperative, Traverse City.
Graphic design by Beatriz Lozano.
