Lindsey Peck Scherloum with The Brashear Association, Inc.

Let’s Eat is an artwork by Lindsey Peck Scherloum that was created in collaboration with The Brashear Association, Inc. as part of the Public Art and Communities Program. The artwork addresses the issue of food insecurity in the neighborhoods of South Pittsburgh. By reducing the stigma surrounding accessing services, such as Brashear’s food pantry, the project seeks to create pride in food and strengthen accessible systems of community support.

Let’s Eat culminated in two outdoor, public meal experiences in June of 2023, crafted after nearly two years of community engagement and research. Part performance and part community conversation, the meals sought to open a space for community building and for creating solutions to food access that are based in the support and resources already present in the Hilltop communities of South Pittsburgh.

In 2021, Scherloum began to work closely with The Brashear Association to learn more about the residents and neighborhoods it serves. In December, Scherloum created a postcard mailer that was distributed to Brashear’s community members, which asked residents to answer questions about their relationship to food, culture, and community. Through discussions with residents and community groups, Scherloum listened and learned about how community members view food and food access, as well as existing stigmas around engaging food support services.

In 2022, Scherloum created a larger campaign to collect ‘Food Stories’ through mailers, an online survey, a telephone hotline, and physical survey dropboxes. She also conducted smaller engagements with additional stakeholders, seniors, and youth from The Brashear Association throughout the engagement period. As she transitioned from the engagement phase into conceptual design and implementation, these community stories, gathered from residents across Brashear’s service areas, became the foundation for Let’s Eat.

Let’s Eat is grounded in a chorus of voices from the community. These voices showcase an array of experiences, from encounters with food insecurity to feelings of pride in food as a source of culture and identity. Using the words of the community as a guide, Let’s Eat created a space for conversation between community members who are in need of support and others in the community who have support to give. By nurturing these connections, Let’s Eat built awareness of existing support structures and how people can access them. This is a critical undertaking in an area where corporate food systems have failed to support people’s basic human needs.

In addition to guiding both the event concept and the final performance script, the words Scherloum gathered from the community were also featured on a unique collection of 80 handcrafted plates that were used during the meals. These plates were wheel-thrown by ceramicists at the Union Project and hand-painted by Scherloum. They feature drawings of food plants – some wild and some cultivated – that grow easily in Pittsburgh, alongside stories and quotes from residents.

As guests ate more of the food on their plates, the text and drawings were revealed to offer conversation starters and information about the food around them. After the meals, the plates were fired again in a kiln at Pittsburgh Center for Arts and Media, and the food that remained became glassy, colorful marks that recorded the meal, the food, and the event. Plans to install the plates at a later date are in development.

Each part of this project was carefully designed in alignment with community voice. For example, the menu for the artwork was crafted in collaboration with Chef Carlos Thomas, using recipes and dishes provided by seniors at The Brashear Association, while dessert was provided by local business Flavor of Puerto Rico. The event site was across from Soil Sisters Plant Nursery, who provided plants as table dressing and take-aways for guests. The performance aspect of the event, led by dramaturg Nick Grosso, featured youth participants from The Brashear Association’s after-school program alongside drama students from Carnegie Mellon University and others from across the city as ‘server-performers’ at the meals.

Learn more about Lindsey Peck Scherloum and her other projects on her website.

Learn more about The Brashear Association, Inc. on their website.

Learn more about the project’s collaborators on their websites.