Leana Boven (b. 1993, Paramaribo) is a curator, programme maker, writer, and researcher with a background in gender- and postcolonial theory. Her work centers on counterculture, diasporic connectedness and the feeling of belonging, spatial justice, ecology and decolonial climate justice, and collective care.
Leana curated her first exhibition, On Collective Care & Togetherness, at MAMA in Rotterdam in 2020, and has since organized multiple exhibitions and programs. She worked as a curator at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons for several years, and currently works as a curator at Stroom Den Haag, where she curated the exhibitions Positions: Soft Intimacies (2024) and Beloved Waters (2025). She is also a curator at Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam, where, together with Yusser al Obaidi, she organized the exhibition series Spiritual Disobedience (2025) and Love, Labour, Liberate (2024). Leana has taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy in the Social Practice department and is currently a tutor in Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven. In addition to her teaching, Leana regularly writes for platforms such as Metropolis M and is a board member at No Limits! Art Castle.
Love, Labour, Liberate! #3 Out of Blue Dinner by Homesick Restaurant
The exhibition Out of Blue Dinner explores power dynamics within host-migrant relationships through
food culture and materially through ceramics. The result is an immersive exhibition created with
traditional Dutch tea towels dominating the scene which depicts various set ups of ceramic
tableware.
The exhibition will be activated through a series of experimental dinners in which Homesick
Restaurant becomes a host for a series of hosts. Hospitality and hosting become a tactic of
subversion, a means for a different kind of spontaneous relationship building which – as
Homesick Restaurant prompts – we are often alienated from in the Dutch dominant dining
context. As highlighted in the title Out of Blue Dinner, the unexpected and impromptu nature of
the dining experience in Asian culture serves as an inspiration and is contrasted to this
dominance. What happens to some of the most vital characteristics of (Asian) food culture
within the Dutch dominant landscape? The exhibition plays with the expectation of cultural
assimilation enforced by Dutch policy. All the while, serving as a space of kinship for the
homesick.
Homesick Restaurant (2020–ongoing) is a pedagogical project consisting of a series of dining
events and workshops focused on food and communal cooking in a nomadic context, initiated
originally by Lu Lin and Tanyatorn Lau. They initiated the project aiming to rethink rituals related
to food to address homesickness among international residents in the Netherlands.
We would like to invite you to the opening of Homesick Restaurant’s solo exhibition at Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam. On the 21st of September at 16:00 we hope to have you join us over a warm meal cooked by the Wijkkeuken van Zuid and a DJ set by DJ Katie.
The exhibition Out of Blue Dinner explores power dynamics within host-migrant relationships through food culture and materially through ceramics. The result is an immersive exhibition created with traditional Dutch tea towels dominating the scene which depicts various set ups of ceramic tableware. The exhibition takes place as part of the exhibition series Love, Labour, Liberate, curated by Yusser al Obaidi & Leana Boven.
Event Details:
Date: Saturday, September 21st
Time: 16:00 - 19:00
Location: Gemaal op Zuid, Pretorialaan 141, 3072 EL Rotterdam
Dinner cooked by the Wijkkeuken van Zuid (Free)
The exhibition will be activated through a series of experimental dinners in which Homesick Restaurant becomes a host for a series of hosts. Hospitality and hosting become a tactic of subversion, a means for a different kind of spontaneous relationship building which – as Homesick Restaurant prompts – we are often alienated from in the Dutch dominant dining context. As highlighted in the title Out of Blue Dinner, the unexpected and impromptu nature of the dining experience in Asian culture serves as an inspiration and is contrasted to this dominance. What happens to some of the most vital characteristics of (Asian) food culture within the Dutch dominant landscape? The exhibition plays with the expectation of cultural assimilation enforced by Dutch policy. All the while, serving as a space of kinship for the homesick.
GEMAAL OP ZUID