Re-Soup was a creative placemaking event that merged food, art, and conversation to bring together a community and gain feedback and ideas in a creative and fun way from a large group of people.
Essentially, the event was a huge community soup dinner, made entirely out of ‘recycled’ foods (i.e. those that are donated, gleaned, and/or not for market because of cosmetic faults). In addition to eating, the event asked for visitor par- ticipation beyond eating, encouraging diners to write, draw, and discuss memo- ries, issues, and solutions to current problems in the neighborhood. In this way the event became not just a way to nourish a community physically but also a way prompt conversations, relationships, and community-wide growth and impact.
The huge ‘community eating’ was held in October 2016 in Covington, KY. The event took the form of 100 6’ tables for soup sipping and art making, wrapping their way around the circumference of Orchard Park. 600 feet of paper table coverings were spraypainted with questions and prompts, asking community members to associate food with memory and get to know their neighbors and their ‘hood through this act of eating.
Re-Soup was created by The Center for Great Neighborhoods in collaboration with The NKY Incubator Kitchen. The project was initiated and led by artist Calcagno Cullen and was funded by the LiveWell NKY, the Center for Great Neighborhoods, and Cov10.
Photos on this page taken by Stacy Wegley.