AWARE, L’AiR Arts and researcher-in-residence Oluwatobiloba Ajayi would like to invite you to take part in a gathering shaped around food and shared eating at Atelier 11 Cité Falguière. As part of this event, O. Ajayi will present her ongoing research on Zina Saro-Wiwa’s Table Manners, a video series showing people from the Niger Delta eating.
O. Ajayi’s project traces the politics of food in Ogoniland, Nigeria from an imperial past to an extractivist present, where across Z. Saro-Wiwa’s videos, eating becomes a reparative act between land and body. As part of the presentation, O. Ajayi will invite us into the work by serving homemade food. The assembly mirrors both the films and Z. Saro-Wiwa’s act of making them, creating a ritual of eating for us to share together.
Echoing the video work Jonah Eats Bread and Stew with Coca-Cola, the food available will be chicken stew and bread, with an egg-based sauce as a vegetarian option. The stew is prepared by O. Ajayi in collaboration with Marie Doumerc, a Paris-based food practitioner who will bake the bread. This cross-cultural gesture speaks to O. Ajayi’s experience researching Nigerian food whilst living in Paris, and to the way food carries and adapts across geographies.
Practical information
Friday, March 13, 2026, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
L’AiR Arts
11 Cité Falguière, 75015 Paris, France
Free entry with limited number of places: please register here
The conversation will be held in English.
<Oluwatobiloba Ajayi is a London-based artist and writer. She holds a BA in Architecture (Princeton University) and an MA in History of Art (Courtauld Institute of Art), where she specialised in post-war Black British Art. Informed by anti-, post-, and decolonial theory, her research centres on the importance of space within Black feminist creative practices. Her writing has appeared in The Architectural Review, The Brooklyn Rail, and Worms, among others. Recent group exhibitions include Amphiphrasis (words as objects): Oluwatobiloba Ajayi and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha at the Broodthaers Society of America, NY(2024), and Manifold Lagos at Alára (2024).
Marie Doumerc is a French private chef based in Paris. She creates intimate, bespoke cuisine shaped by the seasons, the landscapes, and the ingredients that express them. Deeply connected to the land and the rhythms of nature, she works with carefully sourced, raw ingredients from trusted producers, embracing an honest and terroir-driven approach to flavor. Through collaborations with contemporary artists and art galleries, she imagines tables where cuisine enters into dialogue with artistic creation, in a spirit of sharing, simplicity, and attention to living materials.
L’AiR Arts Association is committed to contemporary practice within a historical perspective, hosting residencies, group programs, partner initiatives, and public events, welcoming artists and cultural professionals from around the world. Based at Atelier 11 Cité Falguière, a historic Montparnasse site that has served as a live-work space for French and international artists for 150+ years, L’AiR Arts continues this legacy as an International Arts Research Residency. During the event, attendees will also have an opportunity to meet current L’AiR Arts resident artist Alexandra Uppman. Based in Luxembourg, she explores the emotional and symbolic links between nature and identity. In preparation for her Open Studio on March 21 as part of Le Printemps du Dessin 2026, Alexandra is working with oil charcoal to develop a series of drawings, seeking to integrate immersive and atmospheric elements into her creations.
