by TM Petaccia

There are pop-ups and there are pop-ups, but 2023 UPPY Non-Restaurant Chef of the Year and 2024 StrEATs Neighborhood Cookoff champion Awo Amenumey may be just be setting a record with her upcoming one. She’s travelling 5,479 miles from her new home in Charlotte to her birthplace in Ghana for a one-night special event dinner.

Her five-course dining pop-up, Elements, will take place November 28 at 7 p.m. at Kwae Terrace in Accra’s Airport Residential neighborhood. The menu will draw from the Elements collection by Ghanaian mixed media artist Kwame Alorlete Akpokavi, using seasonal Ghanaian ingredients to interpret his artwork and encourage diners to consider their own connections between what they see and what they taste.

Amenumey and Akpokavi connected through Instagram several years ago and had discussed collaborating without settling on a project. During a trip to Ghana this summer, she visited his studio to see the Elements collection and talk through the possibility of a dinner.

“I thought it would be great to kind of interpret the element pieces in food form, like what that would look like on the plate,” Amenumey says.

Akpokavi works extensively in fabric collage on canvas, combining African printed textiles, including Ankara, with found objects. Some pieces incorporate handwoven kente cloth, string, gold pigment, and resin. He began as a sculptor working in wood and clay and has worked from a studio in Accra since 2021.

The Elements collection includes twelve works, with three pieces representing each of four elements: Fire, Air, Water, and Vegetation. A fifth element, “Self,” is not depicted in the artwork. As Amenumey explains it, Akpokavi sees the elements coming together to make up the human self, an idea she plans to explore through the meal. Her interpretation will consider what an element does and how diners experience it, citing a few examples.

“I am thinking fire as transformative,” she says. “in fire you take something and you pass it through fire it goes from one stage to another. Air I’m thinking what is around us that we don’t see that also sustains us so that dish is going to have elements that evoke those feelings. For the fifth course, Self, she envisions a dessert that brings aspects of the other elements together to represent self. Her ideas include aeration, fermentation, and seasonal produce, although the menu is still being developed.

Amenumey initially hoped to hold the dinner during her summer visit and began developing a menu around ingredients available then. With the event now scheduled for November, she is adjusting those dishes to reflect the season. She also wants to explore preservation and the place of ingredients harvested and stored for later use within the food system.

“I feel the menu is never 100% complete until the plate is presented,” she says.

Sourcing will draw on relationships she established with farmers during her summer visit, as well as Ghana’s open markets. Arriving early, she says, provides an opportunity to see produce coming in and talk with purveyors about its origins. She is also connecting with organizations focused on sustainability and food systems.

Akpokavi’s works will be displayed throughout the dining space, allowing guests to see the collection as the evening unfolds. The pieces will also be available for purchase. Each course will be accompanied by a question on the menu, prompting diners to consider their reactions to the food and the corresponding artwork. Amenumey will discuss her interpretation and the thought process behind each dish, with guests encouraged to share their own thoughts around the table. “It’ll be very interactive,” she says.

For Amenumey, the collaboration is an opportunity to extend Eh’vivi’s storytelling through other art forms and explore the relationships between food systems, culture, and society. She wants diners to arrive with an open mind and consider how the elements relate to their own sense of self.

Charlotte is also part of that vision. She hopes to bring a similar experience to her new home city via her Eh’Vivi pop-up concept, although she has not yet identified an artist for that collaboration. “If there are any artists out there who are interested, I would definitely want to talk and explore the possibilities.” she says.

“I definitely want to bring that experience back home here to my Charlotte folks. The city has shown me so much love and I want to reciprocate that love and definitely explore what that would look like.”

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