About The Artists

Culinary Artist Chef Adé Carrena

Adé Carrena is an award-winning culinary artist, and storyteller whose work explores the intersection of West African foodways, the American South, and diasporic memory. Named North Carolina Chef of the Year (2023) and a Chopped! Champion, she is known for creating immersive, hands-on dining experiences, workshops, and gatherings that center food as a living archive carrying history, survival, and care across generations.

She is the founder of iLéWA Foods, a spice company committed to ethical sourcing and building an equitable eco-system that honors the knowledge of women farmers and producers in West Africa. Adé is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the co-director of Bite of Bénin, a documentary project exploring displacement, food, identity, and belonging through the lens of West African cuisine and diaspora.

Through cooking, film, and education, Adé’s work invites people to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with themselves, with culture, and with one another. Her practice is rooted in reclamation, community, and the belief that food holds what words sometimes cannot.

Featured Exhibition Artist Jo Ann Morgan

Jo Ann Morgan is a former professor emerita of African American Studies and Art History at Western Illinois University. She received her Phd in American Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles. Morgan has authored two books; The Black Arts Movement and the Black Panther Party in American Visual Culture and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” as Visual Culture.

Artist Statement: I began sewing during the pandemic. Quilting and applique’ techniques seemed a perfect choice for making art that could offer comfort during trying times. The wall-mounted hangings are constructed in layered cotton fabric. Because quilted comforters are familiar and approachable, the medium is ideal for addressing provocative topics related to social justice and inequality. Despite the unsettling themes, these stitched fabric pictures offer a soothing counterpoint to the harsh events of contemporary reality. If there is a message running throughout this work is “seeking comfort in a fraught world.” Art can be a way to process events and experiences that are almost too much to bear.

The Space Between: Artspace Legacy Dinner

Food, Art, and What We Carry Forward