Kayla Tate
The Table as Portal: The Ecology of Genius
This supper series is taking place at a future date. More to come.
The Table as Portal: The Ecology of Genius is a social sculpture and supper series exploring Black genius as a communal and ecological practice. Grounded in Detroit’s traditions of collective care & creativity, the project treats gathering as a generative ancestral technology—one capable of slowing us down, sharpening our senses, and expanding how we imagine ourselves and one another.
At the center of this work is a guiding question: How do we nurture genius in ourselves, our young people, and our communities?
Each supper brings together a small group of artists, educators, organizers, and neighbors. People who move toward freedom in their daily work and presence, and who hold pieces of the ecosystem that surrounds Detroit’s youth. The gathering becomes a place to sit with this question together, not to necessarily solve it but to be in meaningful relationship with it.
The experience begins before the meal itself. Each guest receives a Before the Table journal, a private container for reflection and arrival. By the time they sit down, they have already entered the project’s arc: before → during → after. The table functions not as a stage, but as a portal, an entry point into a shared imaginative space.
The installation draws from the science of awe. Studies show that awe expands our sense of time, downshifts the nervous system, increases openness, reduces self-focus, and widens our capacity to imagine beyond what is immediately visible. Through shifts in light, sound, scale, texture, and spatial design, the room is composed to support that sense of spaciousness. Not through spectacle, but through intention.
This work sits at the intersection of participatory research, cultural strategy, and organizing. It draws from the everyday places where Black people have always taught, theorized, and learned from one another—kitchen tables, porches, living rooms, late-night conversations. The Table as Portal continues that lineage, creating an environment where interior life can surface, where people can be witnessed without performance, and where genius is understood not as an individual trait but as an ecology. Something that can be cultivated, exchanged, pruned, and expanded in each other’s presence.
About The Storyteller
Kayla Tate
Kayla Tate (she/her) is a Detroit-based writer, cultural strategist, and community organizer who treats Black imagination as a tool for liberation and worldmaking. As founder of More Art, More Life, she is growing a creative ecosystem on Detroit’s Eastside that expands access to creative infrastructure and brings people into deeper relationship with one another. Her practice moves between writing, social sculpture, and grassroots organizing to create spaces where Black people can experiment, heal, and imagine new worlds together.