You might not consider art projects and business to be similar — I certainly didn’t. But the two work together at Pittsburgh’s Conflict Kitchen, which is a combination restaurant/public art project and the subject of this month’s Uniquely Pittsburgh.
Co-director Dawn Weleski says she balances being able to pay the staff and keep the lights on with whether the Conflict Kitchen creatively engages its audience.
“What makes a successful business and what makes a successful art project is the malleability of the enterprise — to build in a certain level of flexibility,” she says.
She and her Co-director Jon Rubin run the restaurant that only serves cuisine from countries the U.S. is in conflict with.
They also seek to spark debate and discussion. For example, during the Iranian iteration, the Conflict Kitchen asked Iranians all over the world to write part of a speech they would like President Barack Obama to deliver. Everything was complied into a final speech that was delivered by an Obama look-alike in several performances.
Don’t go too big
Over their five years in business, Weleski says they’ve learned some lessons along the way.
There are artists who try to sustain their art through a retail model or by providing a service, she says. What often happens — and this is also what happens in business — is that they think too big, too quickly.
“They have this huge idea of something that’s actually going to happen five years down the road, and they want it to magically appear,” Weleski says.
If you have a business, or if you’re depending on customers or patrons — and artists depend on patrons — pick a tool and then be responsive to your audience, she says.
If something doesn’t quite work, build in a period of time where that shifts to something else.
Weleski says the Conflict Kitchen started with a very small menu of only one or two items. That gave them the ability to shift those pieces quickly and efficiently.
“As we saw how Pittsburgh responded, then we made the menu a little larger, staffed up a little bit, maybe moved to a new location,” she says.
They implemented incremental changes as they went, which allowed the restaurant to build on its success.
Make it relevant
Another problem for artists, Weleski says, is they can overthink things. This is particularly true for socially engaged artists, which is the genre of the Conflict Kitchen.
People want to have discussions with sociologists, community planners and politicians all day to figure out how to satisfy the art project’s mission.
“The truth of the matter is that you can talk for as long as you want, and you’re going to present something, and it’s not going to be satisfactory in a lot of ways,” she says.
Instead, come up with a forum. Then, inject it in a small way and see how people respond.
Weleski says that can ensure your product is relevant to the customer — whether they are in the business world or art world. Otherwise it’s only going to be relevant to you, not to the public.
