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Table Manners: Season 1 2014-2016, Zina Saro-Wiwa, digital video, Museum purchase made possible by the University of Michigan Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Director's Acquisition Committee, 2020 2020/2.3

Zina Saro-Wiwa: Table Manners

Season 1
Curated by Ashley Miller, Assistant Curator of African Art
August 9, 2025 — January 4, 2026
Irving Stenn, Jr. Family Gallery

Feel Free to Share A Meal

In Table Manners Season 1, artist Zina Saro-Wiwa invites viewers into an intimate dining experience—one that challenges our assumptions about identity, culture, and power. In this installation, eight videos portray individuals from the Niger Delta eating meals tied to the region’s cultural and natural landscapes.

Each subject maintains direct eye contact with the camera while eating, conveying a silent, deliberate act of consumption, and reclaiming narratives about the Niger Delta. By centering everyday people and their culinary traditions, Saro-Wiwa subverts the extractive lens often imposed on the region—offering instead a moment of connection, reflection, and quiet resistance. And you’re invited to join.

Visitors to Table Manners are encouraged to bring food and drink into the gallery and eat alongside the individuals on screen—an unspoken exchange that will turn an everyday act into something deeply personal, political, and unexpectedly profound.

SUPPORT

Lead support for this exhibition is provided by the University of Michigan Office of the Provost. UMMA’s acquisition of Zina Saro-Wiwa: Table Manners was made possible by the UMMA Director’s Acquisition Committee (2020) and the U-M Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.