Existential Cuisine

Lei Saito is interested in history, in narratives that are superimposed in layers, which she explores through different techniques, such as drawing, photoengraving, sculpture, photography, and installations.
Very early in her practice, she developed a series of performances and culinary installations—the "Cuisine Existentielle" (existential cuisine)—which she presented notably at the Centre Pompidou, and during collaborations at the Riga Biennial, or at the École des mines, Paris, the Hartung Bergman Foundation, Antibes, the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, at 104, Paris, and at the Abattoirs de Toulouse.
She creates "decapitated" pastries dressed in raspberry coulis for a July 14 party at the Palais de Tokyo, designs an edible landscape of purple and yellow vegetables for London's Matchesfashion, and installs an ice rink filled with clementine jelly in the Galerie de multiples in Paris. But the artist's world is not only marvelous, her work is built around a complex set of references and meanings, drawing from art history, mythology and language, which is invented between Japanese and French.
The compositions that Lei Saito creates are hybridization between culinary traditions, eras, and flavors that together form a new story crystallizing a sensual experience, a new and shared atmosphere. His artistic act aims to create an interaction between people, to make the audience live sensory experience, which then participates in the activation of the work itself. However, this is not a protocol but a characteristic that naturally lies at the heart of her practice: it is all about interaction and balance between the stories she weaves and the experiences she proposes.
To accompany this fantastic culinary narrative, three texts, written by Agnieszka Gratza, Alain Kruger, and Thomas Schlesser, cross the book. The contributions of these authors offer us a reflection on what "Cuisine Existentielle" means, as proposed by Lei Saito.