Technically speaking, it’s not inaccurate to call Akwasi Brenya-Mensa an interdisciplinary artist; it’s a suitable catch-all that speaks to his many professional hats (accomplished chef, established music manager and DJ, bona fide globetrotter), yet so much of his work examines that which defies simple categorization. A decidedly third culture kid with Ghanaian-British roots, Brenya-Mensa is the creative force behind TATALE, an ever evolving project celebrating African flavors and cooking traditions from the Continent and across the diaspora. Named for the plantain pancakes he enjoyed visiting his parents home in Kumasi, TATALE - across its myriad iterations, including a critically acclaimed restaurant at the Africa Center in London - embraces the connections between food, art, and heritage. This year, he created TATALE PROVISIONS for London’s 1-54 Special Projects. Part installation, part retail experience, and part living archive, TATALE PROVISIONS offered a space for reflection, conversation, and nourishment. I spoke with Brenya-Mensa to learn more about the inspiration behind this project, discussing the blurred line between necessity and convenience, third culture culinary practices, and Milo’s messy but meaningful legacy.

Jake Stavis: There's obviously no shortage of artists who have played with consumerism - you think of an Oldenburg, you think of Warhol, but this is a real shoppable place, right?

Akwasi Brenya-Mensa: Yeah, absolutely. It's made up of a combination of crop items - a lot of them are nostalgia pieces -and that's juxtaposed against things made by small batch makers or independent artisans. I wasn't quite prepared to like, take stock and do RRPs and they work out splits and all of this kind of stuff. So the last couple of weeks and, for the next couple, I am definitely in my shopkeeper era or I guess on your side, it would be more like a bodega.

JS: There’s a painter here called Tschabalala Self and she has a whole series called Bodega Run. She's a figural painter from Harlem and I feel like a lot of the central themes of the series - the bodega’s centrality to the community and its uses as a third space - were the same kinds of issues I wanted to ask you about. I love how your project is all about universality but also specificity. So yes, the bodega is probably the most familiar counterpart to this for me, but you mentioned when we were last talking that something like these shops exists in the Philippines, for instance. This specific shop you’ve put together for 1 54, are there specific ones that you were drawing on that you have visited that really were impactful for you?

ABM: My grandma has one which is called Ebenezer Supermarket. It’s in Kumasi. When I was growing up and visiting Ghana as a child, she had been working on it for some time. But even when I hadn’t been going as frequently, she would send updates saying like, we’ve got this, we’ve got that - it was a bit like watching a documentary, seeing her building the unit, then filling it with stock, and seeing people patronize it. I’m going through a bit of that process now, even though it will only be open for four days - it’s very cool to recreate something that is pure nostalgia for me, but that I hope will resonate with people broader than just my community. These kind of familial places where we purchase goods for our homes are everywhere in their own guise.

JS: I'm curious, your project has a lot to do with matriarchs and maternal cooking and auntie cooking and things like this. Is it unusual for matriarchs to take up this kind of work in Ghana? What was your grandmother's previous work experience?

ABM: She was a teacher. So this is definitely more of a kind of a retirement project.

JS: When I think about ways to spend my later chapters in life, it doesn't feel like an easy, low-key thing but there's a nice social component I suppose.

ABM: The area in which she lives, it's not remote but she doesn't live in the city center so I guess it's providing a service for the community. She's providing a way to have access to things like she needs but also people in her community to have access. That's closer to how these stores historically came about, whereas here in London, it’s really pure convenience and much less necessity.

JS: I’m wondering about the curation of your own store. Something I spoke about with the Bodega Run catalog contributors was the bodega as an index of socioeconomic and ethnic trends - as people move into the neighborhood, what are the things that they need or presume that they need. They then start showing up in the store, which sort of signals the people who pursue that store that things are changing here. Have there been instances where you've seen something that she's stocking that you wouldn't have expected?

ABM: Not so much with hers. But I think that’s partly because of where she lives. If you were to look at the same kind of store in Accra, you would find a lot more modern “convenience” type stuff, like mobile credits and what have you. And it's not to say that the items in her store are not conveniences, but I think that what she stocks is closer to what people need for their day to day lives. In Accra, it's going to be a combination of that, but also things that people could make their dinner without.

JS: I think what you're getting at is this tension of how do we define necessities versus conveniences, and when do those things maybe overlap? I think it's especially interesting to think about yours as this highly curated experience - I'm coming at it from the perspective of having lived in New York and LA. I think about all these buzzy boutique stores… I'm trying to think of a generous way to say markers of gentrification. “Provisions” stores that stock like only vegan snacks, or artisanal tinned fish. I don't think you could make the argument that really anything in those stores, particularly at the price points that they're selling them are real necessities. Whereas my understanding of your project is really looking at, what are these institutions that seem to be popping up all over? There's variety to them, but there is a certain DNA that exists culturally. That was not really a question.

ABM: No, no. I agree with you there, and I guess how I've tried to approach it is again, kind of like juxtaposing these original Items, that you would find certainly back home and then also having their contemporary counterparts. Milo, as an example, is the chocolate drink of choice for a generation or maybe even several generations. But we'll also have a small batch coffee maker that's going to provide hot chocolate for us. Rather than me prescribing what's necessary or convenient, I guess it's more like curating a space in which these things can live and as each person interacts with that space, whether it's by sitting down reading a book for 15 minutes or ordering a coffee or a snack, or picking up some items. Their experience will kind of decide what it is for them; some people may just want to come in look around. My job is to kind of build it and then it's for people to have their unique interaction. We've got moments of programming happening on each day. That was the other thing, trying to curate a space where community is really central. I wanted to bring other creatives whom I respect or have worked with into the space to be able to kind of celebrate their creativity as well which is going to be really fun.

JS: What the Milo example brings up for me - especially since you named the Philippines having these stores as well - so many of these products that are stocked in them are vestiges of empire and colonialism. Even after the decolonial turn, many communities have complicated relationships with these products, particularly when it comes to food because it comes back to this question of convenience, necessity, what you need to do in certain times. I think this project really gets that sort of the gray areas of globalization, interaction, and consumerism.

ABM: That's why having artists and makers involved is so important, apart from the fact that I love collaborating with other people. It's not easy to kind of break those ties if you grew up having Milo since you were a child. I think the way to broach these things is to have a bit more holistic view, asking yourself, what do I do with all the money that I spend? While certainly some of those items are problematic, they're tied to memory. This installation also investigates how even if some memories are tied to potentially heinous products, that doesn't make those memories any less beautiful.

JS: What is history if not unpacking and trying to understand those memories? Particularly when we think about this question, how do we spend our money - it’s maybe a cop out to just say there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, but I think that's kind of a throughline. Are you familiar with Tunde Wey’s work? He is a Nigerian artist, who also plays a lot in this realm of ethical consumption. He released a batch of iru with Burlap & Barrel. And then there was also this salt that he released… it now escapes me but I think it might have been priced differently for white people, as a sort of “reparation” payment. Suffice it to say, I think what you're getting at is just being conscious of how your dollars are spent. And I think also being realistic about the fact that our principles and our needs don't always align.

ABM: I completely agree with that. That's everybody's individual battle to kind of ratify - what you're okay with and what you're not okay with - and for some people, they may not care. Then other people may walk the extra mile to go and get the ingredient. They want to get it from that kind of shop, they want to support that premises, they know the shopkeeper. That's another thing that we've kind of really lost. I remember when I was a kid, we knew the shopkeeper, he knew my name, and he knew my mum's order. I just go there and I'd be given a bag and I'd hand over the money. I want to kind of make sure this kind of space exudes that kind of familiarity. If you come on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday and we serve you, then, we should be able to know your name to say hi again, or at very least, recognize you and be like, how was the oil that you bought yesterday? Did it work for you?

JS: It kind of comes back to this question of convenience, which these days is often about speed. You think of what Amazon is doing, especially in their stores that basically are robot staffed. I see how that could be perceived as convenient but, if you need to find something in one of those stores, good luck. I think there's something really to be said about the human side of convenience, right? Or maybe it’s calling a customer service line, just the amount of time it takes to speak to someone human. I suppose it’s convenient for the decision makers at the top who don’t have to pay as many people, but the question is again, convenient to whom?

ABM: We're getting further and further away from people in a lot of things that we do. Personally, if I go into a store and there is a choice between a cashier desk and one of those machines, I'll always go to the person. In my head, it makes them more difficult to replace. I understand why somebody wouldn't want to wait an extra 10 minutes just because I want to be served by a person, but I also feel like with the self scanning, like I'm doing a job - like now I’m working.

JS: No, no, no, it’s convenient, trust me. What's on the schedule for TATALE PROVISIONS?

ABM: So it’s pretty heavily programmed. We have “conscious candor,” round the table discussions regarding cultural exchange through nourishment and art. We have author Marie Mitchell doing a round the table conversation about her book, Kin. We have a supper club with author and photographer Caleb Azumah Nelson. His latest book, Small Worlds, talks very heavily about food, and one of the characters hopes to be a chef in a restaurant one day - we’re doing a supper club based on the dishes explored in that book. He’ll do some readings during dinner as well. Then on Sunday, we have our afternoon tea in two parts. The first is a tasting with Maison Itany, hosted by a tea sommelier from Paris. After that, we have an afternoon tea with pastry chef and author Benjamina Abuhe. So it’s a lot of different disciplines - all of these various ways in which I can share my practice or share my art, they're very enriching.

JS: I'm curious about the afternoon tea - I’m again thinking about this through line of rituals that are beloved and also, maybe tied to colonial practices. Is afternoon tea a thing in Ghana? What is snack culture like, for lack of a better term?

ABM: Afternoon tea is most definitely not a thing in Ghana as far as I'm aware, outside of hotels for sure. I think that there are definitely bites that people enjoy - chin chin, a fried dough snack, or things like, puff, which is a West African donut and probably the origin of southern beignets. There’s koose, also known as akaara. People might eat any of those sweet breads with milky tea for sure, but I would say they tend to eat bigger meals rather than to have lots of snacks. I am essentially a product of third culture, and TATALE explored that space in between - how somebody might be born or raised in one place but most certainly considers themselves from another place. Benjamina is a ridiculously talented pastry chef, so for me, it was just the natural for someone who identifies as Ghanaian-British to do this in London. Those things are really fun - I remember the first time I ever went out for brunch in New York at Essex something….

JS: On the Lower East Side.

ABM: Yeah, it was mimosas non-stop. The first time I went to New York was like 2011 or something. With TATALE brunch, I always find that kind of challenging in a really exciting way - as much as TATALE is West African and exploring dining from the continent,I have always tied my lived experience to it. And so if I visit a place, I'm always thinking, what does that experience look like through my lens? What does a New York bottomless brunch look like through the lens of African ingredients and African recipes? The afternoon tea is that at work. Even with the potentially problematic tea - we have a tea sommelier who is a real artisan, and can speak to where these ingredients come from, how he formulates his teas, and how he makes those decisions.

JS: I know that music is central to a lot of your projects. I feel like I have a vision of bodega music but I feel in a lot of these provisions spots it's kind of a stereo just plopped on the counter blaring radio. Is there a music or sound component to TATALE Provisions?

ABM: I’d like to have a kind of listening station - that probably looks like a turntable, where people listen to records from my personal collection. And then there will definitely be a kind of radio stroke. The provision stores back home, they don't tend to kind of necessarily have their own kind of sound systems as they were but they’re usually in quite busy areas with music or sound blaring. There are elements of randomness thrown into the mix.

JS: I’m imagining like a football game or something

ABM: For sure, it could be that. A lot of my family loves listening to those radio stations where people call in and voice their opinions a lot. The aunties and uncles really loved that. So, there'll be a bit of a kind of a sound installation element, where I like chop and piece and things together.

JS: TATALE chopped and screwed. I love it.