Rice Cultures Feast — Collective Culinary Gathering

This event celebrates rice as a cultural connector across geographies — from Uzbekistan’s palov to West African jollof, Brazilian rice with feijão and farofa, Korean bap with kimchi, Indian biryani, Peruvian chifa, and Ruz Bukhari from Saudi Arabia. 

Three Palovs — by Bahriddin Chusty (Uzbekistan)
Three Uzbek palovs (selected from regional masters) remind us that even within one country, rice holds multitudes.

Ceebu Yapp — by Chef Tamsir Ndir (Senegal)
In West Africa, ceebu yapp — rice with meat — tells stories of coastal exchange, migration, and resilience. It carries the rhythm of the Atlantic and the pulse of celebration. In Bukhara, it meets palov not as a guest, but as kin — two dishes speaking the same language of community and care.

Arroz, Feijão e Farofa — by Caique Tizzi (Brazil)
Brazilian identity is explored through its foundational foods. Drawing on food historiography, the work reflects on how rice, beans, and farofa emerged from Indigenous, African, and European entanglements.

Rice, domesticated in Asia and brought by the Portuguese via West Africa, became a colonial and later urban staple — a symbol of order, refinement, and “white food.” Beans, native to the Americas and cultivated by Indigenous peoples, absorbed African techniques of stewing and seasoning; the black bean, central to feijoada, came to signify earth, labor, and resilience. Farofa, derived from cassava domesticated in the Amazon, provided starch and stability, linking Indigenous subsistence to hybrid colonial cuisine — the territorial matrix of Brazilian food

Bap with Kimchi — by Jeong Kwan (South Korea)
Rooted in the ethics of Korean temple cuisine, Jeong Kwan’s practice embodies non-violence, mindfulness, and the seasonal balance of all living beings.
Her culinary philosophy traces an ancient route that once linked Korea to the Buddhist monastic centres of Bihar, India, through travellers like the monk Xuanzang, who passed through Bukhara and Samarkand on his travels. The slow transformation of kimchi — prepared at the opening of the Biennial and served at its close — becomes a living metaphor for this journey: the migration of knowledge and taste across Asia, ripening through time, devotion, and care.

Mutton Biryani Rice — by Subodh Gupta (India)
Emerging from the kitchens of Bihar yet belonging everywhere, biryani tells a story of transformation — humble rice elevated through shared rituals of migration and adaptation. Its layered history carries echoes of the Mughal culinary traditions that travelled from Central Asia through Bukhara to the Indian subcontinent, merging with local grains, spices, and sensibilities.

Ruz Bukhari — by Ayesha Erkin (Saudi Arabia)
Named after the city of Bukhara, this rice dish journeyed along the Silk Road to the Arabian Peninsula, carrying with it the memory of exchange. In Jeddah, it became ruz bukhari — a meeting of Arab and Central Asian kitchens, where rice holds the taste of travel and translation. Each grain is a reminder that the mixture is not fracture, but kinship — the hyphen made edible.

The evening closes with the party: DJ and Chef Tamsir Ndir and DJs from Sublimation Festival carry the spirit of the feast into sound — a continuation of hospitality through vibration and movement. 

Capacity: 2000
Sign-up: Not required