Artist looks inward, wants you to ‘Sit down!’ and experience photography centered around food

Jennings, who is also University of Dayton Associate Professor of Photography and Social Practice, speaks here about the intersection between her art and the sociology of food.

The title “Sit Down!” is both a command and an invitation. Which way did you tend to hear it growing up?

Coming from my mother’s mouth or one of my middle school teachers, this was usually a command. But in the context of the current work, it really functions both ways.

Was this work created for Blue House?

The installation is a specific work for Blue House that arose from conversations with the gallerists — Nick (Arnold) and Ashley (Jude Jonas) — around my long-term series At Table, for which I have spent over a decade documenting people gathered around food and drink in spaces around the globe. Blue House provides a great small space to try out this multimedia narrative in an intimate way. I ended up creating new work using my kitchen microwave and freezer to experiment with alternative photographic processes that imagine new narratives for old family photographs through food play.

I found myself wanting to create something that symbolizes both the one — the human alone and apart, and the many — humans in community. TV trays that could come together to make a larger table took form in my mind.

I worked with local contractor Anthony Wanck, who had access to wood from a house that was destroyed in the 2019 tornado. The idea of making something both creative and useful from this material provides an important “backstory” (the theme of this FotoFocus biennial) that connects to both Dayton and the notion of home as a space of precarious shelter.

Can you talk about the relationship between your photographs and the space in which they are displayed?

The installation is conceived as a living room. The small collection of framed images all portray outdoor environments, so I see them as windows to the exterior. The television will show images from the project, and ties into the wallpaper that investigates my lifelong love of television.

My mother was recently diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s. I began cleaning out her house and became the custodian of a family archive extending back to the 19th century. My father was a pharmacist who had a smalltown drugstore, so we were the photo processing site for an entire community. As my mother begins losing memories, these photographs have become lifelines to the past. My mom is ultimately everywhere in the work.

Tell us more about your wallpaper.

All the images come from photographs of the TV shows I watched as a kid – All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times and M.A.S.H. — shows that used comedy to take television’s first hard look at race, class and political conflict through a very American lens.

I became compelled to research the events happening outside of The Jefferson’s dining room or the M.A.S.H. mess hall. The Jeffersons premiered in 1975 just months before the fall of Saigon, and when MASH came out in 1972, Americans had just recently emerged from a soaring inflation that caused widespread protests against high food prices. In the world of the wallpaper, these histories become interconnected by literally forming patterns with one another.

What is it like to present work that focuses on personal themes?

As Sit Down! emerged within the context of the biennial theme of “backstories”, it became more personal. The events with my mother caused me to look inward.

Working with Blue House helped me recognize this need to tell my own story. While the show is tinged with humor and moments of comfort and togetherness, the wallpaper and TV trays are products of an often lonely little girl who became confused and angry about racial inequity. The depth of that conversation is always present within the backstories and the conversations in my community of fellow artists and activists.

Food brings people together, and when we sit down, we are all the same size. We need spaces where the one and the many can be welcomed to just sit down for a while.

HOW TO GO

What: “Sit Down!” exhibit of works by Glenna Jennings

Where: Blue House Gallery, 3325 Catalpa Drive, Dayton

When: Interactive exhibition tmes with the artist, opening night: 6-9 p.m. Oct. 12; Additional open hours: 4-7 p.m. Oct. 18 and 4-7 p.m. Oct. 25