Celebrating Community: Food and Art Unite Event at Munson Sells Out

UTICA, N.Y. — It was a packed house at Munson’s Food and Art Unite event in downtown Utica.

Food and Art Unite was arranged to showcase Utica’s diversity through food, music, and art.

Food was the highlight of the Sunday afternoon gathering hosted at the Munson Museum of Art.

A total of 16 vendors offered a variety of cuisines, including Italian, Ecuadorian, Jamaican, Mexican, and Middle Eastern dishes.

Island Breeze Flavor Restaurant Bar and Grill, a Jamaican eatery located at 517 Mandeville St. in Utica, was a big hit at the event, selling out of their offerings.

Sandra, Carlloyd, and Devin Gowe from Island Breeze were dishing out jerk chicken and their signature dish, Rasta pasta.

“We are one,” Sandra Gowe said of the event. “It’s important that all of us came together today with all different ethnic background to celebrate all different cultures. …We all share that together.”

She added that within 15 minutes, the food they were serving was gone.

“It was so amazing,” she said of selling out of the food. “It was so exciting”

Director of Marketing and Communications at Munson Katherine Laube said that the event celebrated Utica.

“It’s a time to celebrate all the different cultures and the people who have migrated to this area from all over the world,” she said. “It also compliments the exhibition that is currently on view at Munson, ‘Between Worlds: Stories of Artists and Migration.'”

“The food celebrates that,” Laube said about the Sunday afternoon event at Munson.

“It’s a wonderful time, where we can celebrate the diverse populations we have in Utica. It’s a wonderful opportunity to show that Munson is really a community space that invites all kinds of people through our doors,” she said.

92.7 The Drive and 98.3 El Zorro Latino Radio are co-hosting the event with the museum. WKTV is also a sponsor of the event.

Mindy Barstein, owner and general manager of 92.7 The Drive and El Zorro, said, “Because we all live here, and we’re locally committed to the area, we realized with El Zorro, all the different ethnicities that we could bring together. And everyone comes together through food.”

“When we reached out to Munson and had our partnership, they were having a wonderful exhibit about immigrants and art,” Barstein continued. “And people are united by food, by art. And with all the different cultures. All the different people that we are meeting, this is one of our missions at the radio stations is to bring people together.”

Utica Royalties performed a dance routine at 1:30 p.m. The Utica organization is “dedicated to nurturing the talents and potential of our youth, empowering them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed and thrive,” their website states.