SIMASENG RESEARCH KITCHEN

Simaseng Research Kitchen is a project that celebrates Niger Delta agricultural bounty and seeks to use food and drink to help define the region away from oil and gas. This project not only documents local cuisine but reimagines it. Historically the Niger Delta and Ogoniland has been regarded as a kind of Eden: fertile, diverse, abundant. Simaseng Research Kitchen is appealing to this history and this reality and seeks to get to know the land on its own terms outside of it’s identity as a place where oil and gas is extracted. For us it’s all about soil not oil and it is through our celebration of the land and experimenting with local cuisine, that we imagine a new future for the Niger Delta, transforming its image and creating food entrepreneurs that connect with the local, national and global market. Helping diversify the oil and gas-based economy and rebranding the region along the way.

Mangrove Arts Foundation founder Zina Saro-Wiwa has been working with West African food long before she became an artist and food has featured prominently in her contemporary art practise once it started, in the form of curated Mangrove Banquet feasts, Illicit Gin Institute Assemblies, video installations and recipe art pieces. She has experimented wherever she has lived in London, New York and LA but it is in Port Harcourt and Ogoniland that her culinary practise has truly flourished and deeply connected with the landscape over the years. Simaseng Place is the name of the historic home associated with the Saro-Wiwa family. A beautiful 50-year old, postcolonial building set in a pictaresque garden, Simaseng Place has evolved over the years and has been home to many fruit trees, medicinal herbs, flowers and shrubs. It has also been a home to many people, not only from the Saro-Wiwa family but the extended family and wider community. Zina occupies the home and has been restoring it since the death of her mother Maria Saro-Wiwa and it is from Simaseng Place’s kitchen that she has continued to experiment with ingredients from the garden, foraged foods from Ogoniland and produce from local markets, feeding many along the way over the years. For Zina the best way to imagine a post-oil identity for the Niger Delta is through food. By expanding the culinary repertoire of the region and researching deeply hidden indigenous culinary traditions and vegetation, she believes a renewed relationship with the land can be forged. Zina says:

“The paradoxical thing about Ogoniland is that it is still a place people look to for good food. Clean food. This is an identity that, apparently, cannot be erased. We have long been fishermen and farmers with beautiful soil that fed the region and supplied transatlantic ships. This actually makes the tragedy of oil despoilment that much more acute, because first and foremost we are an agricultural and medicinal haven. Simaseng Research Kitchen wants to conserve but also push forwards this identity and to expand the culinary footprint of this region. We believe that through our work with food we promote a deeper connection with our land and we can also develop new markets born of our new recipe ideas. This way we expand the areas that are clean and inspire better practices for those areas that are heavily polluted and despoiled. Simaseng Research Kitchen is a celebration. A celebration of Ogoniland, Port Harcourt and the Niger Delta through food and drink. A celebration we share mindfully and joyfully with our community, with Nigeria and with the world.”

Simaseng Research Cafe:

Simaseng Research Cafe is the official museum cafe for KSW Rooms (The Ken Saro-Wiwa Rooms). Based at 24 Aggrey Road in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, the cafe presents curated food and drink offerings that translate the bounty of Ogoniland and the Niger Delta into food that sustains visitors and allows our land to tell our stories. We are also a point of culinary connection with the outside world and plan to express the ways Port Harcourt’s history implicates the histories of cultures such as British and Lebanese. We use food to connect with other parts of the country and the world. The cafe offers sustenance to those that visit the museum as they confront this sometimes difficult history of the Ogoni 9 and Ken Saro-Wiwa. But it also exists to tell Ken’s story imaginatively through food, and to tell a story of Port Harcourt through new recipes and food events. For example our first curatorial exploration is about bread and tea. This exploration is inspired by many aspects of Port Harcourt life and history but is also inspired by Ken who fed bread and tea to the soldiers that were tasked with holding him under house arrest at Simaseng Place in 1994. Simaseng Research Cafe we hope will be a lively addition to Port Harcourt’s food scene and a research hub for our agricultural heritage.

Simaseng Research Garden:

Simaseng Research Garden is a garden in the Rumuibekwe neighborhood of Port Harcourt not far from Simaseng Place, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s historic home in Port Harcourt. Inspired by village life in Ogoniland at its sweetest, it is a space where ecological, intellectual, emotional and cultural healing and exploration can take place. We aim to share our research findings through meals, lectures, screenings, and other programming in a joyful space that is truly nature forward. A calm but vibrant oasis in the bustling urban Port Harcourt city where experiments can continue with local ingredients and involve many more voices from farmers, keen amateur cooks and food entrepreneurs from all walks of life and all parts of the region and the world.

Simaseng Research Garden will contain a plant nursery, botanical garden, a state-of-the-art test kitchen and outdoor cooking area, a cafe, restaurant and bar where our culinary experiments will be shared. There will also be a library and screening room, a teaching space, art gallery and an international residency programme. This residency will be for chefs, artists, writers, academics, food producers, film-makers, ceramicists, national and international indigenous wisdom keepers and scientists to explore what the Niger Delta has to offer and also to share and exchange knowledge and develop skills. A vibrant garden space delivering the social medicine that the region needs as it deals with the silent but potent impact of colonial legacy and the extractive industries. A site for the people of Port Harcourt and further afield to connect peacefully with nature and a place to learn about deeper ecologies and botanicals that are found in more inaccessible parts of the region.

Please consider donating to MAF to help us achieve this by clicking here. If you have any in kind support in the form of architecture and landscaping advice and knowledge we are equally happy to hear from you. Thankyou so much!