Homegrown Utica

part of the Arts for Everybody national campaign


Homegrown Utica celebrates the rich legacy of rural self-determination and artistic voice in the Utica community. Part of the national campaign Arts for Everybody, Homegrown Utica sought to prove how the arts can lead to healthier people and healthier communities. Following johnson’s relationship building artwork with Sipp Culture and Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Centers in Utica, these two institutional partners joined with the Town of Utica to become a Site Team in Arts for Everybody and invited johnson to be a Cultural Strategist to facilitate a Community Advisory Group to design and implement their Utica Arts for Everybody project. johnson worked with this Community Advisory Group (CAG) to define their goals and implement a strategy. The primary outcomes defined by the group in March 2023:  1) address food access in their 39175 area code, 2)  strengthen sustainable working relationships among Utica residents, and 3) reactivate their Main Street as a welcoming site for the neighboring towns and former residents.







Homegrown Utica consisted of the creation of the Utica Food Club, a town mural on the local library, an artisti residency at Utica Elementary/Middle School, two community-based multi-month art engagements, a Spring programming calendar of agricultural and arts programming at the library and community center, and the mounting of Homegrown Utica Fest on Main Street July 27, 2024. In the course of the work, johnson faciltiated the CAG, the Utica Food Club, the Food Club Working Group and then Leadership Team, the Homegrown Utica Fest committee, the four commissioned artists, community partnerships with the Volunteer Fire Department, Utica Police Department, and Library, a Significant Developments artist organizer team of five, and the relationship of the Site Partners; Utica Town Council, Sipp Culture, and Jackson-Hinds Comprehensive Health Centers. johnson additionally was the point person for the relationship with the national teams from National League of Cities, One Nation One Project, and University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine researchers.








Formed in February 2023, the Utica Arts for Everybody Community Advisory Group (CAG) was a six member group of residents connected to Main Street, the Site Partners, the local school, and a long-time local dance team the Mahogany Dancers. This core group of residents met on a monthly basis to identify the goals of the project, conceive the means by which we should pursue the goals, guide the design of the calls for public art, serve as selection panel for all art commissions, guide community engagement decisions, and advise on the programs and events as they came into being and were implemented.  This core group eased connections and communications with local institutions partnering in the work and were ambassadors for the project in Utica, inviting friends and neighbors to participate and answering questions about the work in the course of their daily activities. 
L-R: Kayla McDonald, Shanique Davis-Hampton, Sherril Strong, James Owens, Mary Lofton, Cycsila Washington, & daniel johnson


The loss of the Sunflower Grocery Store in 2014 is one of three major plot points in every conversation about food in Utica. The closure of Utica High School in 1996, then the closure of the t-shirt factory across from the Sunflower, and finally the closure of the grocery store. The first two moved jobs predominantly held by women out of town and with them their weekly grocery budget. All three represented the loss of local communication channels; keeping up with other families at school events, hearing the latest gossip at work, finding out about the next garage sale or rodeo while in line to buy milk and eggs. The conversation had moved from how to attract a grocery store to how we could work together to get groceries in Utica. At the end of a long meeting in June, CAG Member James Owens said, “This may sound strange, but have y’all ever heard of a grocery cooperative?”


The Utica Food Club first met in August 2023 at the Utica Community Center. Through the Fall the group shared stories to identify the staple goods they can never be without in their kitchen, formed a Working Group to research the prospect of establishing direct wholesale and producer relationships, and worked to program a Spring calendar with workshops so they could learn together how to grow and store food, find the best bargains at the store, and use plants as medicine. After issuing a request for proposals, the Working Group hired Research Associate Rene’ Hardwick in January to identify local farms, product producers, and whole sale suppliers. Beginning in February 2024 the Working Group along with other “host” Food Club members held workshops on topics including fermentation, navigating grocery apps, homesteading, and plant medicine. By June, a Leadership Team with Officers had formed, work on Bylaws and a Membership structure was underway, and the first community produce order had been submitted to Sunrise Produce. The Utica Food Club has now completely transitioned to community control. 

Over the course of Fall 2023 into Winter 2024, the Community Advisory Group issued a Call for Artists to submit proposals to engage the Utica community in ways ranging from traditional public art works to arts-based community engagements and socially engaged art projects. Parallel the CAG arranged for a school artist residency program to be held at Utica Elementary/Middle School and issued a call for artists to design that project. The CAG ultimately selected three artists for public works: Gavin Bird from Jackson, MS to engage a community-design process and paint a new town mural, Stephanie McKee-Anderson from Picayune, MS to engage residents in a quilting themed community engagement exploring the recipes and remedies passed down our maternal line, and Sara Green of New Orleans with her Food Dignity Project exploring the relationships between us, our food, and food producers. Kira Cummings was selected for her project Puzzle on Your Plate for the school artist residency. The engagement with these art works and the various art & agricultural workshops through the Spring deepened the public discourse of all participants around the role and meaning of food in Utica.

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On July 27, 2024 over 1000 people came to celebrate all things “Homegrown Utica” in this little town of 670 people. The Volunteer Fire Department, Utica Police Department, Town Council, Evelyn Taylor Majure Library, Sipp Culture, Jackson-Hinds Clinic, Utica Elementary/Middle School, and numerous business owners and community organizations came together as an invitation to work together and lift up all the assets Utica, MS has. With a primary goal of cultivating sustainable working relationships within the town, the festival was always seen as a project to help us learn how we all work together and to iron out the details of what that means when you are in the thick of it together. As a rural town which had lost so many social spaces where ideas and news are exchanged, the festival was a grand invitation to gather, learn about each other, and identify who wants to be part of this Homegrown Utica movement. Homegrown Utica Fest helped town residents to claim roles in the process and identify other local creatives to get involved ~ 28 Marketplace vendors, 10 Food Vendors, and 13 Community Organizations took part with 46% of total sales at the festival going to Utica creators and 76% of total sales to creators within 30 miles of Main Street!

daniel@significantdevelopments.us — Jackson, Mississippi
Running on Cargo