00;00;00;00 – 00;00;39;15
Cindy Holmes
Welcome. I’m Cindy Holmes, and this is Around the Table, a podcast where we bring forward conversations about shared meals, dialogue, spirituality and social justice. Around the table is a research project and a podcast. In this podcast series, we share our conversations with community leaders from across Turtle Island who have organized intentional dinner dialogue to support community well-being and advance social justice, anti-racism and decolonization.
00;00;39;17 – 00;00;53;10
Cindy Holmes
Today’s episode is being recorded on the Unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Peoples.
00;00;53;21 – 00;01;38;04
Cindy Holmes
On this week’s episode of Around the Table, I’m in conversation with Regan Shrumm, a social practice artist who organized the creative and innovative project through the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, called What Artists Bring to the Table. This project took place every Sunday from July to November in 2019. Regan says the project examined the wide range of narratives that food offers us, where participants work directly with an artist to cook a meal or learn a food related skill, and then sat down to discuss how the workshop related to a bigger food topic such as food security, sustainability and food colonization.
00;01;38;06 – 00;02;08;05
Cindy Holmes
Regan Shrumm is a queer, gender queer, and disabled curator, educator and artist who has been living on and off the traditional and unceded territory of the lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ Nations. They are from Italian, Polish, German, Scottish and English ancestry. They’ve previously worked for museums such as the Museum of Northwest Art, Two Rivers Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and the National Museum of American History.
00;02;08;07 – 00;02;38;08
Cindy Holmes
Their practice focuses on questioning every system and aspect of society as the arts allow us to understand, complicate, and contradict truths about human experiences. Welcome, today we are here with Regan Shrumm and really excited to have you with us and wondering if you want to maybe start off by just introducing yourself and telling us where you’re coming from, where you’re joining from today.
00;02;38;10 – 00;02;57;13
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, hi, I’m Regan Shrumm. I’m a queer, gender queer, and disabled artist, curator, educator. And I’m coming right now from the Unceded traditional territories of the lək̓wəŋən speaking peoples currently known as Victoria, B.C.
00;02;57;15 – 00;03;23;09
Cindy Holmes
Great. The project that I’m so excited to talk to you about was called What Artists Bring to the Table. And I’d just love to hear more about it through the course of this conversation. But maybe the first thing that I’d be interested to ask you is just from your own experience, your own life. Can you speak about a time when you shared food with others around the table and felt a sense of belonging?
00;03;23;11 – 00;03;55;17
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, I would say. I mean, food has always been a big part of growing up. My upbringing. We had a very standard kind of Americanized, so trying to it keep healthy, but maybe having parents who didn’t understand what healthy necessarily meant. So it was really in university when I got to develop my own cooking skills and tastes of what I enjoyed and a couple times that really come to me is often through artmaking.
00;03;55;17 – 00;04;20;29
Regan Shrumm
So there was once a project, I used to work at a place called Open Space, which is an artist run center in Victoria, and the opening of this artist residency, the artist named Kari Flanagan, was created by this individual named Megan Quigley. And it was a dumpling making party. And it was such a lovely way. And that kind of really sparked creating community by food.
00;04;20;29 – 00;04;50;08
Regan Shrumm
And even over the pandemic, one thing I did with friends was, a couple of friends I would have like weekly dinners outside, ‘til it got really cold. So one of us would bring a meal to feed everyone else and then we’d share and have conversation until it got too dark and cold and then we would leave. And that was a really lovely way of like creating community during a time of separation and still trying to be relatively safe during that time.
00;04;50;10 – 00;05;17;04
Cindy Holmes
Both of those experiences, really powerful images of people coming together, sharing food, and as you say during the pandemic that was such an important thing for so many of us, but not possible for some others. But really beautiful example. Would you be able to tell me a bit about the project that you did? And I think that was maybe about when it was, how it got started and what the purpose of the project was.
00;05;17;07 – 00;05;47;07
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, so the inklings of it was started in 2018 but the project itself was 2019 and I was working at the time as the assistant curator of engagement at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. And my job was really to create community projects for people who wouldn’t normally come into the art gallery itself, because often there’s very many negative associations with our gallery, for it being very high class.
00;05;47;14 – 00;06;12;23
Regan Shrumm
The building itself is a very colonial building, so there’s many good reasons why people don’t want to come. So, What Artists Bring to the Table was one of the first I got to program myself with the frame of mind that I wanted to make sure that all of the artists were from bipoc, disabled, or queer communities in attempts to then have community members from those communities as well.
00;06;12;26 – 00;06;39;14
Regan Shrumm
And they all took place at the Oaklands Community Center, either inside the community center or just outside of it. And it was really a way to bring people together because food is one of those basic needs that we all in fact need. And a lot of us have a lot of positivity around food. So I thought it was one way that I could really get people out.
00;06;39;17 – 00;06;50;05
Regan Shrumm
And then also kind of question what is art making and what is art and have kind of conversations around food and art.
00;06;50;08 – 00;07;22;20
Cindy Holmes
It’s so exciting to see what you did. I just love the images that you have on your website and the information that was shared through the art gallery. I wish I had known about it because it would have been great to participate. What was the goal, do you think? You’ve talked about some of it related to changing people’s perceptions about art and bringing particular folks to the gallery and connecting with one another and art practice who may not have typically been coming to the art gallery?
00;07;22;20 – 00;07;26;03
Cindy Holmes
But can you say a little bit more about what the goals were of the project?
00;07;26;05 – 00;07;53;10
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, I mean, I think one issue that I struggle in working in the arts is that many people find it hard to access the arts for many different reasons. Again, there is some financial barriers of people who are trying to make art and they don’t have the means to do it or even accessing it financially to go to an institution or feeling safe in that institution.
00;07;53;12 – 00;08;21;18
Regan Shrumm
And so part of my process as kind of an educator or curator is to try to create events and programming that work, to create these accountable spaces that both welcome people, but also help create kind of a critical lens about the world around us. Because I think art is a really valid way and a special way of critiquing the world.
00;08;21;20 – 00;08;48;19
Regan Shrumm
So for me, again, food was something that I have kind of built community from or communities who I already work with, but I bring food together and it brings us closer. So often in fact, when I was first working for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, I was doing an accessibility audit where we were kind of looking at accessibility in the broad term of just barriers.
00;08;48;21 – 00;09;22;06
Regan Shrumm
And one thing I would do every time I met someone, I would often bring banana bread with me, homemade banana bread, nice. And it’s something that I actually do a lot. When I worked in Prince George and would fly up there, I would often bring homemade goods and I just think like when people start eating and talking, it really kind of creates the safety because I think as we eat, it’s a very kind of vulnerable thing in a way, and it can bring up conversations that might not otherwise be talked about.
00;09;22;08 – 00;09;46;23
Regan Shrumm
And that’s kind of what I wanted to do in this program was to help create a time where people could connect with others more easily, maybe from different viewpoints or different backgrounds, and then also kind of help orient other ways of thinking and kind of broadening people’s worldviews but through food itself.
00;09;46;26 – 00;10;09;23
Cindy Holmes
So such a powerful, you know, as an artist, you talk about food as a medium and you identify, I think, as a social practice artist, which is something that I’d love it if you wanted to share a bit with us about what that means, because a lot of what you’re talking about in terms of the significance of food and what you’re doing in community with it as an artist.
00;10;09;25 – 00;10;47;05
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, social practice artists are artists who basically create, collaborate, or work with community members to kind of create dialogue or create interactive events, all with the means of, again, trying to help bring new worldviews or create action. In my case, it’s usually creating kind of new worldviews and not trying to push anything on to anyone, but just helping broaden different thoughts and yeah to practice that because I love working directly with people.
00;10;47;07 – 00;11;12;15
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, it’s wonderful. When the gatherings were taking place, were there a series of events or how many did you organize? And maybe you could share some of the examples of some of the artists, what they were doing? Because I know this piece about a critical analysis, as you’ve mentioned, was an integral part of what you were doing. And so maybe just tell us a little bit about what happened at these events.
00;11;12;17 – 00;11;39;29
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, it took place over, I believe six months and there was one a month which I organized and I tried to have a wide variety of different topics that we would talk about. So I had a lot of fun researching different artists, some I already had in mind and others I would just talk to artists to see who they thought would be great artists to work with.
00;11;40;01 – 00;12;14;28
Regan Shrumm
So, for example, our first session that happened was at that point a Vancouver based artist named Amanda Wang, who now is based in New York City and works at Pratt Institute, and her practice is a food designer. She’s a professor at Pratt, and her artistic practice often centers on dumplings themselves with this thought that all cultures around the world had some form of dumpling that they had.
00;12;15;00 – 00;13;02;12
Regan Shrumm
And so kind of thinking about this, a future where written language would in fact be on dumpling folds. So Amanda created a whole kind of code based on the different results and with her practice, she spent a lot of time and research into native plants, Indigenous plants, and at the time she was based in Vancouver, so I helped her research Victoria based native plants, worked with her to find and access local ingredients so that together as a group and each time we had about a capacity of 30 people, we made the dumpling filling together and then together
00;13;02;12 – 00;13;34;13
Regan Shrumm
Amanda taught us how to do the different folds. And as we were eating these dumplings, we then had a conversation around food and race and talking about different cultures, experiencing different types of food and what it means, again, to be more open to foods that maybe you didn’t grow up on, but others did, and finding connections to people who did grow up with that food and finding relationship building through that.
00;13;34;16 – 00;13;50;07
Cindy Holmes
And did people know what the topic was when they were signing up to come– so they knew they would be participating in a food making activity with an artist. They knew that there would be some discussion and did they know what the topics would be?
00;13;50;10 – 00;14;04;17
Regan Shrumm
Yeah. So in advance we advertised all of the different topics and it was a kind of, it was a free event, but people had to register in advance. And every time we saw that was very fast often-.
00;14;04;17 – 00;14;05;18
Cindy Holmes
Amazing.
00;14;05;20 – 00;14;25;16
Regan Shrumm
People wanted to come to all of them. Yeah, wishing that we had the capacity to have more people. But setting that kind of in terms of marketing helped set the tone. Though I still had many interesting conversations with people after events again, kind of questioning, why is this art?
00;14;25;18 – 00;14;33;28
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, right. Interesting. There was also a publication that came out of the project and maybe you could tell us a bit about that.
00;14;34;01 – 00;15;03;24
Regan Shrumm
Yeah. Again, this was a very low budget production in terms of the art gallery resources and because it was just a six month program that only was limited to 30 people each time, I really felt like it was important for people to understand the conversations that we were having in those spaces that were just temporary and no one was recording the conversation.
00;15;03;24 – 00;15;31;22
Regan Shrumm
So we made a zine which featured a number of different recipes that different artists submitted, and then kind of a conversation about what had been discussed. And I had also worked with an assistant, and she was the other person who had gone to every event. So we got her to write a short essay about the event and her perspective on it.
00;15;31;24 – 00;15;47;17
Cindy Holmes
It’s so great to have that as well. There was the in-person gathering, there was the food that people ate, and then there was this kind of like an art book that came out of it in terms of like an art making, that it was a zine I think seemed so appropriate in terms of the community.
00;15;47;19 – 00;15;48;10
Regan Shrumm
Yeah.
00;15;48;10 – 00;15;52;18
Cindy Holmes
Community engaged process. I like that it was a zine.
00;15;52;20 – 00;16;19;14
Regan Shrumm
Well literally. I had no budget for it. I had to like find a budget to pay the artists for, and then it was me just photocopying on the art gallery copier and then putting it out at the front desk at the gallery shop for people to take. And I worked with Victoria Compost Education Center to help spread the word both about the workshops but also give the zine out to those organizations as well.
00;16;19;16 – 00;16;41;01
Cindy Holmes
Right. One of the other events I think was or maybe this was actually part of all of them, where you were using discarded food, maybe you could tell us a bit about your motivation for that, how it connects to your –the overarching vision you had and maybe your politics in terms of what you were also doing as an organizer.
00;16;41;03 – 00;17;15;26
Regan Shrumm
Yeah. So one particular workshop with the artists collective based in Vancouver, Artists Don’t Care, that was the main subject matter was using food that would have already been, would have been thrown out or harvesting in a ethical way. But that was something that was throughout the series as well. I had worked with at the time Whole Foods, which has a whole giant warehouse of foods that would otherwise be thrown away because they donate quite a bit to foodbanks.
00;17;15;26 – 00;17;53;19
Regan Shrumm
But there’s still so much more that the food banks can’t use on a day to day basis. So I was working with that. There used to be at the time many different local grocery stores such as Walburns and Oxford Foods that had dollar veggie bags. So often it was kind of a week before the workshops. I would have the list of what the artists wanted and then I would be scouring all of these stores to try to again, use things that would otherwise be discarded.
00;17;53;21 – 00;18;40;10
Regan Shrumm
But yeah, the Artists Don’t Care Collective for them, that’s a really big part of their practice, is try to lessen food waste, to do ethical harvesting. And so with them it was a lovely experience of, we got them to come, I think a couple of days before the workshop and I connected them to different areas around Victoria. One that I remember taking them to was the Victoria – Vic West Orchard, which is a community run orchard that I at the time was also helping out with, and we picked some I think it was Calendula the orange flower that we used, and I made salsa for that event.
00;18;40;10 – 00;19;02;14
Regan Shrumm
So I picked a bunch of different tomatoes and it was just lovely kind of way, we’re walking around the Vic West area and found like fiddleheads that we came upon that were just outside near the Save-on foods area, and we picked some and used those too. So I learned quite a bit from that collective about what to look for.
00;19;02;16 – 00;19;28;27
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, very interesting. And I love how you’re also really celebrating the work of these different artist collectives and these different artists that people might not know about as well. Yeah, can you tell us a bit about how the initiatives, the gatherings, how they affected people both individually and then maybe in the broader community? Maybe some examples that you could share with us?
00;19;28;29 – 00;19;56;19
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, I mean, there’s a couple people that come to mind who were in fact regulars. One who at the time was a person of color who was a student at UVic, and they had just moved to Victoria and just kind of saw that this was a free event and lived around the area and just like loved it so much and really found it was a way to help talk to other committee members.
00;19;56;19 – 00;20;23;17
Regan Shrumm
They felt pretty isolated just in the university and they got a chance to talk to people of all different kinds of backgrounds who, you know, one connection was that everyone loved food, but another connection was that everyone enjoyed art, too. So there was common ground, not just with each scene, but the fact that folks came often from both worlds or an interest of both worlds.
00;20;23;19 – 00;21;09;02
Regan Shrumm
So I just remember at the very end, the person like wrote a thank you card, which I’ve never received before, from like a participant who isn’t collaborating about just the impact. But I also had many challenging conversations. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria brings a certain kind of clientele to their events, and that clientele is usually an educated, white, cis individual, and sometimes when I noticed if I had advertised in the events page, in Times Columnists, for example, the local newspaper, I would get, people would see the Art Gallery Victoria and would get really excited about an event.
00;21;09;04 – 00;21;47;17
Regan Shrumm
And those sometimes were particularly in the beginning, I would have people who come up after and wanted to bait me about what they’d just experienced, whether it was art and what the point of it was. Why the art gallery would spend money on such things that they considered not to be art, but yet still came, like they still stayed the whole time and they came to other workshops and by the end there was one particular individual who I don’t know if I ever changed their thoughts about whether it was art, but they did enjoy it and brought a lot of interesting perspectives to the conversations.
00;21;47;19 – 00;22;02;29
Regan Shrumm
And I think those are kind of the challenging conversations I like to have of not necessarily changing people’s perspectives, but again, obviously there was some kind of interest that brought that individual back over and over again. Yeah.
00;22;03;02 – 00;22;24;07
Cindy Holmes
It’s interesting to think about that and kind of ties into something else I was interested to ask you about, which is how power relations play out in some of these gatherings where people are coming together and also inequities and how does that shape or influence the dialogue. We have, the food, we have these existing power relations or inequities.
00;22;24;07 – 00;22;31;04
Cindy Holmes
I’m just curious to know what your experience was around that in some of the gatherings.
00;22;31;06 – 00;23;10;17
Regan Shrumm
Yeah. One thing I do as a curator and a programmer is try to make again the most accessible as possible, knowing that it still won’t necessarily be accessible for all. So they were free events where people got to eat food and those are big barriers for folks. As well as they took place at the Oaklands Community Center, which is a community center that, one of the only places that has ground level, that has gender neutral, wheelchair accessible washrooms and also has like a separate secondary space that often in programing, I use it kind of for what I call quiet space.
00;23;10;19 – 00;23;31;27
Regan Shrumm
It can be used for people who are neurodiverse and just need time away, can be used for folks who need to breastfeed or things like that. But there is, of course, with all of these, you know, I’m a white individual and a lot of the artists I worked with during the series are people of color, or black, or Indigenous.
00;23;31;29 – 00;24;07;14
Regan Shrumm
And so often as a curator, I’m working to make sure that they feel as safe as possible. And also, it’s an accountable space. So if something does happen, I can then help make change in the future. So really trying to give the artists as much of the power as possible. And if there’s any kind of resistance, then that goes on me in terms of like participants being resistant or being confronted and making sure that the artist does not have to deal with that kind of situation.
00;24;07;16 – 00;24;37;14
Regan Shrumm
I do remember Alexis Hogan. Their workshop was all about thinking about where our food comes from. I remember they brought a strawberry, and one element that they did during their workshop was to do storytelling about where this particular strawberry came from. Thinking about how it came from California, the migrant workers that might have picked it, and kind of creating this possible narrative.
00;24;37;16 – 00;25;10;19
Regan Shrumm
And I remember some people kind of like hadn’t thought of where the food comes from. They did another one about butchering animals and that process of when it’s done as an independent butcher, of someone who’s just hunting and butchering versus something that is done in a factory, and how that process. So that one I remember, people being like body language was a little defensive and people I think being a little more shocked and maybe never having felt this.
00;25;10;22 – 00;25;37;21
Regan Shrumm
So every time that we did this, we sat often in a circle around a table as we ate, and we always had kind of a debrief too. So that way if there were feelings that came up again, we could talk about that. And again, if something came up that was very defensive, then I could then take this participant and have a separate conversation so it didn’t have to involve the artists.
00;25;37;21 – 00;25;42;04
Regan Shrumm
If it didn’t need to, or if the artist didn’t want to be involved.
00;25;42;06 – 00;26;09;15
Cindy Holmes
Right. That’s something I was wondering about. Also, just what helps people to feel comfortable enough and safe enough to come together across differences for dialogue about difficult topics and, you know, just trying to think about how these gatherings foster an environment where that dialogue can happen, but what are the conditions or what needs to be there to make the gathering and the dialogue feel safe enough or meaningful for people.
00;26;09;15 – 00;26;20;05
Cindy Holmes
So you talked about a circle, you’ve talked about the food. Is there anything else that you would add to that based on what you experienced in terms of what helps?
00;26;20;08 – 00;26;47;23
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, I always start with all of these workshops and with all the projects I do creating kind of community guidelines together before a workshop starts. Again with some of these artists, they wanted to be the facilitators completely in which they were the ones to facilitate guidelines or the conversation. And other times they wanted me to do that, and I do a lot of facilitation, so I’m comfortable with that.
00;26;47;23 – 00;27;23;11
Regan Shrumm
So often creating community guidelines together, having the advertisement directly talk about, this workshop we’re going to talk about race, this workshop, we’re going to talk about where food comes from, this workshop, we’re going to talk about eco-living. That kind of gives a signal as well. I will say, like there’s a double-edged sword of working with institutions like the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, where at the time they were trying to change their community’s perspectives of who they were and what kind of programming they were going to put on.
00;27;23;13 – 00;27;41;28
Regan Shrumm
But because of that name and it being an institution of, you know, colonial museums, there can be a lot of people who won’t show up or who kind of question the art gallery’s intentions in the programming and what they want to do.
00;27;42;01 – 00;28;08;28
Cindy Holmes
And I appreciate hearing all of that. And you know, you’ve talked about guidelines and you’ve talked about debriefing space. You’ve also talked about where you gathered matters. So you talked about bathrooms and you talked about creating space for neurodiverse folks and a lot of different things that you were putting a lot of care into as an organizer to make the space feel safe enough for people to come and be there.
00;28;09;00 – 00;28;38;01
Cindy Holmes
And it’s really, I think, for all of us that are trying to foster meaningful dialogue across differences and try and address difficult issues and topics in our communities, it’s always interesting to share stories and hear what helps. And I guess you shared a little bit about some of the challenges, but I was curious if you had other challenges that you encountered when organizing or facilitating and what strategies you used to address those.
00;28;38;01 – 00;28;40;22
Cindy Holmes
Is there anything else that you would want to add?
00;28;40;25 – 00;29;11;18
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, I mean, I had a great supervisor, even chief curator Michelle Jakes, who was just so supportive when I pitched this program to her. But there were others in management at the time who were kind of less supportive around this type of programming and or kind of questioned the logistics, right? Because there’s a lot of logistics. You’re making food together with the community.
00;29;11;20 – 00;29;38;01
Regan Shrumm
And I remember this was one of the biggest things was just the timing of it all. It was like a three-hour workshop, and so each workshop was a three hour workshop. So the first hour to an hour and a half would often be the cooking and the food making, whatever that looked like. And then the second half would be kind of the eating and the conversation.
00;29;38;03 – 00;30;06;01
Regan Shrumm
And there were a couple where the artists were maybe less experienced, and I really had to be the facilitator and say, we can’t do all of this food making and kind of burst dreams of the artists’ creativity, of bringing the logistics of we only have this much time, you had to think through. You don’t want participants even signing waivers to use a lot of knives.
00;30;06;03 – 00;30;34;21
Regan Shrumm
It would only be the artists and myself and volunteers who had food safe, who would be the ones who were kind of doing any of the more hazardy cutting or anything like that. So I guess just like thinking out what the reality of some of the again, ambitions of some of the artists and bringing it down to a logistical manner was probably the most complicated thing.
00;30;34;23 – 00;30;35;22
Regan Shrumm
Yeah.
00;30;35;25 – 00;30;44;23
Cindy Holmes
Yeah. Really interesting to think about the logistics piece, which isn’t small and it is labor intensive and lots of pieces to think about.
00;30;44;26 – 00;31;12;22
Regan Shrumm
It was quite fun too, because there would be times where in this case I kind of considered myself both an artist and a curator because a couple of times I got to make stuff at home a week or two in advance, especially a lot of canning, I love to can, and then bring it to the workshop so things would be already prepped, again, working collaboratively with these artists to see exactly what I could help bring.
00;31;12;22 – 00;31;26;06
Regan Shrumm
So there was one time that I brought like a lovely salsa or I had done some canning of cheese balls, of like goat’s cheese balls kind of thing. And those were very fun activities to do.
00;31;26;08 – 00;31;50;02
Cindy Holmes
It’s beautiful to hear about what you were doing in this project, and I’m really inspired by it on so many levels. One of the things that we have been hearing from folks is that for some, the shared meal as a sacred space and a site of healing has been identified as being a part of these dinner dialogues or food sharing dialogue initiatives.
00;31;50;04 – 00;32;23;29
Cindy Holmes
Some people have suggested that that experience of gathering to share food and dialogue in a community can also be a spiritual experience, not necessarily connected to religion or faith. And I was just curious if you have thoughts on that in terms of spirituality and whether that holds a place in your work, in organizing this or any connections that you saw around those sharing of the meal or sharing food, connecting that to spirituality, to social justice?
00;32;24;01 – 00;33;02;06
Regan Shrumm
I mean, I think any time when you are sharing a circle with strangers and bringing food to it and there is like a certain spirituality of come together, especially in this case of coming all together to cook a meal together with essentially strangers and trusting each other, of giving tasks of how to create different parts of the meal, and then having faith that it will come all together and there is something about seeing participants collaborate together like that and the meal – really enjoying the meal afterwards.
00;33;02;08 – 00;33;39;27
Regan Shrumm
There is something to it that this project was particularly memorable for me in that regard, but I was thinking about there’s a Indigenous curator by the name of France Dupragney, who lives in Sydney, B.C. and I used to work with her when I worked at Open Space, the artists-run center in Victoria, and a big part of her programming was often to have like feasts because her programming often works with particularly Indigenous communities and Indigenous artists but is always welcome to all.
00;33;40;00 – 00;34;24;07
Regan Shrumm
And that really was inspiring to me because particularly the last year I worked at Open Space I think like we put on five or six community feasts and logistically it was– from the back end it was so hard to figure out everything because we were feeding at some cases 200 to 250 people. It was all for free. But then sitting down and actually sharing the meal and talking to Elders or talking to just community members who didn’t know each other, there is something magical to it that I think it is, it’s very healing.
00;34;25;02 – 00;34;51;15
Cindy Holmes
Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing about that. I’m wondering about any lessons learned that you would want to share for folks in terms of what might be helpful for other people who want to do this work or who are doing it. If someone wanted to start a food dialogue project, a dinner dialogue, or any other sort of tips or lessons learned that you wanted to-
00;34;51;18 – 00;34;51;24
Regan Shrumm
Yeah.
00;34;51;24 – 00;34;53;16
Cindy Holmes
-bring forward.
00;34;53;18 – 00;35;42;03
Regan Shrumm
There is a real pleasure in doing it DIY, or even not doing it yourself, but doing it with community – so DIC. And thinking about logistically, of, you know I had to do it low budget because I had a low budget, but even I’m the kind of person who doesn’t spend very much. So yeah, thinking about the logistics of how are you effecting change in what you are buying, how are you making sure that you are ethically buying as much as you can, if that means diverting things that would be thrown out or trying to buy local really kind of speaking to action not only during the events but also kind of pre events of the
00;35;42;03 – 00;36;09;24
Regan Shrumm
planning. And I think really, once you offer food to people, I think there’s always going to be an audience for it. And I think particularly if you can do it in a collaborative way in which those people can be a part of it, aren’t just showing up and food is ready, but really engaging what they are making and learning how to do it themselves.
00;36;09;24 – 00;36;25;11
Regan Shrumm
So perhaps they’ll kind of share lessons as well. But yeah, there is just something, as I said before, there is something magical that happens when you sit in a circle with strangers and food is brought.
00;36;25;13 – 00;36;43;29
Cindy Holmes
So in terms of this project had an end, but you’ve done other projects that have some similar themes about bringing people together to break isolation and also to foster dialogue. I don’t know if you want to share a little bit about what those projects were.
00;36;44;02 – 00;37;13;00
Regan Shrumm
I mean, a certain theme that I have in all of my work is kind of intergenerational growth, particularly thinking about how we can bring people together, as you say, through isolation or loneliness. So another project I worked on was called Listeners in Residence, and it was a three phase project with the first phase being working with seniors in a care home at Luther Court and in Victoria.
00;37;13;02 – 00;37;45;03
Regan Shrumm
And it was myself and an artist named Libby Oliver, and we worked with a group of seniors to see what kind of activity they wanted to do on a twice a week basis. And they actually said, what we really miss is hosting people at a dinner party. So with that, we had biweekly meetings in which Libby and I would often bring something, a favorite meal that one of the participants had.
00;37;45;04 – 00;38;07;14
Regan Shrumm
Often, Libby was the one cooking at that point, and then sharing the meal together and eating it together, while kind of making decorations for a big dinner party that was going to happen. So sometimes that was like mashed potatoes. I remember that was one of the participants favorite meals was mashed potatoes, and they haven’t had it in years.
00;38;07;16 – 00;38;44;05
Regan Shrumm
And then other times it was a Russian New Year’s Day cookie. A lot of these seniors had dementia and it was really lovely to see what memories that eating the food sparked. And that project then was cut short slightly due to the pandemic and then turned into a couple of different iterations until it turned into one where it was connecting seniors and youth who are both from the LGBTQ2+ community and sharing skills, but often part of that sharing skills,
00;38;44;08 – 00;39;19;08
Regan Shrumm
we would meet all together as a group with all the different pairs. And often I gave people gift certificates to their favorite restaurants or grocery stores, and we would eat together through Zoom. When I first had planned it, we would eat together in person, but that just couldn’t happen. But I remember one of the pairs, in fact, they were both Indigenous queer individuals and their end project was that they taught each other how to cook different traditional foods and then created a small zine themselves of the different meals that they had taught each other.
00;39;19;10 – 00;39;29;02
Regan Shrumm
And again, like the knowledge that can come from sharing different recipes and learning about your culture through that, it’s just an amazing experience.
00;39;29;05 – 00;40;00;14
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, it’s exciting to hear about these other projects and also how you were able to pivot and keep it going through the pandemic. I know many of the dinner dialogue initiatives that I’ve read about did try and keep something going on Zoom and obviously not the same as being in person around the table, but still incorporating the eating together on Zoom or having some component of making food together and eating and having a dialogue.
00;40;00;17 – 00;40;13;24
Cindy Holmes
Yeah. I’m wondering about any future projects that you’re thinking about. Are you interested in exploring these themes or other social issues in future projects?
00;40;13;27 – 00;40;41;11
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, a future project that I’m right now writing a grant for is actually surrounded by sleep. Creating sleep podcasts that artists will create can be sounds, or it can be storytelling that help people fall asleep with the big kind of opening or the launch of all the podcasts will be a slumber party. And again, with that comes food, because every event –
00;40;41;11 – 00;41;13;27
Regan Shrumm
I do, food is always an element. And as an individual who never attended a sleepover before, I have been really enjoying thinking about how we can bring in creative elements instead of just buying pizza, that might be a more traditional sleepover, how we can work with artists to collaborate in very fun and interactive ways. Again, bringing in food and this idea of having a party before you have to fall asleep sort of thing.
00;41;14;02 – 00;41;20;05
Cindy Holmes
That’s really fun. And would this be with people who know each other or strangers?
00;41;20;08 – 00;41;24;08
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, well, just open to the public of who would want to come.
00;41;24;11 – 00;41;40;01
Cindy Holmes
That’s really great. Wow. Love it. Okay. I’m going to be watching for that. If people want to find out more about these projects or if they wanted to know more about what you’ve done, how would they find out about them?
00;41;40;04 – 00;41;52;27
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, I have a website, just my name, Regan Shrumm dot com, and I also have an Instagram, which is also my name. A very millennial thing to do, which is also Regan Shrumm.
00;41;52;29 – 00;42;17;16
Cindy Holmes
That’s great. Well, we’ll post that on our website too, we’ll have the episode and then we can put the links too so people can see the images from the gatherings and the work that you’ve been doing. Is there anything else that you wanted to share before we close? Just wanting to.. I think we’ve covered a lot of things, but I just want to give you space if there’s anything else that you feel we haven’t talked about that you wanted to bring in.
00;42;17;19 – 00;43;14;00
Regan Shrumm
I was just thinking about, I guess a pre 1900’s context of how people came together through community making and it was often through either food or art in many ways and just kind of honoring all the different cultures around the world of how these two things were brought together and the importance of that. And I think often it can be hard in this modern age to find community or find connection to people and thinking about ways that we can bring back traditions that served humanity for, in some cases, time immemorial, and the importance of bringing that back, but also making sure that those voices who have knowledge of these different cultures and connections are the ones
00;43;14;00 – 00;43;17;07
Regan Shrumm
in the forefront.
00;43;17;10 – 00;43;49;27
Cindy Holmes
Yeah. I really appreciate that’s a really central part of your practice as an artist and as an organizer in all of this is really bringing an awareness to power relations, inequities, and the desire to change and remove those inequities. So I really see that coming through in your art and in these events that that’s been a central piece. And for me, I think about that as that theme around social justice and art and food that’s running through all of the work that you’re doing.
00;43;50;00 – 00;44;00;26
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, Thanks for bringing in this piece about like history and across different cultures and time and what’s been these two pieces coming together for you.
00;44;00;28 – 00;44;03;07
Regan Shrumm
Yeah, well, thank you for having me.
00;44;03;09 – 00;44;26;26
Cindy Holmes
Yeah, thanks for taking the time. And I’m really so inspired by the work that you’ve done, and it really feels like it’s been transformative. I’m excited to see about the sleep project and what else might follow from this. Your What Artists Bring to the Table has inspired me, and it links to so many of the other projects that we’re reading and hearing about and talking to.
00;44;26;26 – 00;45;00;12
Cindy Holmes
So thanks so much Regan. That’s it for this week and I look forward to seeing you next time. If you’re enjoying this, you can subscribe at Spotify, iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and follow us at our website Around the Table Dialogues dot ca. Around the table is produced by Cindy Holmes, Fionna Chong, and Leslie Williams on the Unceded ancestral and traditional territories of lək̓wəŋən and WSÁNEĆ the Peoples.
00;59;43;08 – 01;00;28;06
Cindy Holmes
That’s it for this week and I look forward to seeing you next time if you’re enjoying this, you can subscribe at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts and follow us at our website aroundthetabledialogues.ca. Around the Table is produced by Cindy Holmes, Fionna Chong, and Leslie Williams.
On the unceded ancestral and traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples. Support for Around the Table comes from the University of Victoria, Vancouver Community College and the Sharing Farms Society.
Podcast editing is provided by New Leonard Media and music is by Oleksii Kaplunskyi.
Around the Table 