Artist Statement
My interdisciplinary practice explores cycles of resilience, transformation, and liberation through an approach that bridges cooking, sculpture, sound, video, installation, and social practice. Rooted in Black radical traditions and informed by my parallel work as a chef, educator, and author, I interrogate the intersections of racial injustice, food apartheid, and collective care. My activations and installations honor ancestral knowledge while imagining emancipatory futures.

At the heart of my practice is the belief that art can serve as both altar and engine—a site of remembrance and a catalyst for communal action. In my 2025 installation The Table and the Larder: Feeding the People, Remembering the Future, I ask how domestic ritual—especially within Black communities—can be a space for political education, cultural transmission, and healing. The mise-en-scène references Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series: green linen curtains part to reveal a photograph of Fannie Lou Hamer rallying Mississippi supporters in 1964, framed in a salvaged window whose red paint, uncovered beneath layers of cream, symbolizes Black resistance enduring beneath imposed narratives. By centering Hamer, I seek to rebalance the locus of visionary leadership through the lens of Black women’s labor, organizing, and spiritual fortitude.

Rather than treating materials, food, or space as static, I imbue each with narrative and metaphysical weight. A charred wooden table and pantry hold Ball canning jars containing soil from Black farmers, beet-hibiscus water, and pickled collard greens—arranged in red, black, and green to evoke Marcus Garvey’s flag. Quotations from the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for Children Program appear on yellow school chairs, while an overhead speaker layers Hamer’s voice with contemporary Black farmers over beats by my band, Saint State Street.

Whether transforming everyday materials into sculptural portals or collaborating with communities, my work challenges passive consumption and invites active engagement. I ask how ancestral technologies can be recovered not as relics but as tools for future self-determination, affirming that art is a necessity for building a more beautiful, just, and nourishing world.

(click on the images below to explore Bryant's diverse work.)