Bo Fiyai Fe x Lush Gardens: Exploring Cultural Memory Through Food and Conversation

At Lush Gardens, we believe that gardens are not just places for plants to grow, but spaces where people, ideas, and culture can take root. Bo Fiyai Fe aligned naturally with this belief.

Bo Fiyai Fe at Lush Gardens Port Harcourt

Curated by Beulah Adaka Boro-Waritimi, Bo Fiyai Fe is an intimate cultural project centered on memory, food, and the ongoing work of preserving Niger Delta identities. Hosted at Lush Gardens, Port Harcourt, the gathering brought people together around a shared table to reflect on where we come from, what we carry forward, and how culture is sustained beyond documentation.

Why Bo Fiyai Fe Matters

Across the Niger Delta, much of cultural knowledge exists outside formal archives. It lives in language, recipes, heirlooms, photographs, fabrics, stories, and everyday rituals. These things are often passed down informally and, increasingly, at risk of being lost.

Bo Fiyai Fe was created as a space to pause and ask important questions:

What do we inherit?

What do we remember?

What do we choose to preserve?

Rather than approaching cultural preservation as a performance, the project focused on conversation, listening, and shared experience. Guests were invited to bring personal memorabilia. Objects that held meaning. Items that carried stories. These became entry points for reflection and discussion, reminding us that cultural memory is both personal and collective.

Food as a Point of Connection

Central to the evening was a curated vegan menu inspired by Niger Delta flavours, reinterpreting familiar dishes while creating room for innovation. Food functioned as more than nourishment. It became a language. Each course opened up conversations about migration, adaptation, memory, and the ways food changes as people move between places. The menu created a bridge between local and diasporic identities, showing how culture continues to evolve while remaining rooted.

Conversations at the Table

Guided by conversation cards developed for the project powered by La Fiole, guests engaged with questions around language, family traditions, cultural icons, inherited recipes, and the role of the arts in preservation. These discussions unfolded slowly, between courses, allowing space for listening as much as speaking.

The structure of the evening was intentional. Guests were welcomed, introduced to the thinking behind the project, invited to share what they brought, and then guided through the meal. Breaks between courses created moments for reflection, ensuring the gathering remained calm, thoughtful, and intimate.

Why Lush Gardens Supported This Project

Bo Fiyai Fe fit naturally within the kind of work Lush Gardens wants to host. The project prioritised conversation, presence, and shared experience over scale or spectacle, creating a setting where people could sit together, eat thoughtfully, and engage with cultural memory in a grounded way.

As a space that sits between nature, creativity, and community, Lush Gardens believes in hosting experiences that encourage people to think outside the box, get creative, and connect. Supporting Bo Fiyai Fe was a way to contribute to conversations that matter, particularly those centered on local identity, memory, and future-thinking within the Niger Delta.

This collaboration reflects our commitment to cultural work that is thoughtful, community-focused, and respectful of place.

Highlights From the Evening

• A sold-out, shared-table gathering with guests fully engaged throughout

• Personal memorabilia that sparked meaningful dialogue

• A vegan reinterpretation of Niger Delta dishes

• Calm, respectful conversations shaped by curiosity and openness

• The release of the first Bo Fiyai Fe zine, documenting the project’s ideas and reflections

Looking Ahead

Bo Fiyai Fe is not a one-off moment. It is the beginning of an ongoing project exploring how cultural identities are remembered, adapted, and preserved.

At Lush Gardens, we are proud to have hosted and supported the second gathering and look forward to future collaborations that continue to explore culture, food, memory, and community in thoughtful ways.

More from Bo Fiyai Fe is coming.

Stay tuned!