Taste of Exile
Featuring Chef Cristina Martínez, directed by Illya Mousavijad, in collaboration with Paloma Martinez-Cruz, and Jeremy Patterson.
A Two-day Exhibition Opening & Participatory Immersive Dining Experience.
Opening Friday, April 24th & Saturday, April 25th.
Exhibition on view through May 5th, 2026
No Place Gallery
1 East Gay St. Columbus, Ohio
Advance registration is required.
No Place Gallery is pleased to present Taste of Exile, a new media exhibition and immersive dining experience exploring immigration, exile, and labor in food service, the multisensory project interrogates the boundaries that have kept cooking outside the artistic canon.
Step into a shared ritual of storytelling, where traditional Mexican and Indigenous cuisine meets virtual reality (VR).
In Taste of Exile, participants who register for the immersive dining experience (see additional information and registration link) enter a multisensory environment that creates a layered encounter with memory, ancestry, and place, narrated by Chef Cristina Martínez. The experience explores culinary knowledge shaped by land, migration, and ceremony—presented not as a fixed tradition, but as a living narrative activated through taste and communal gathering.
Presented concurrently in the gallery, the exhibition features MenuFesto, a collaborative project that brings together interviews with immigrant food truck and restaurant workers—including cooks and servers—from Columbus and Philadelphia. Text excerpts and audio recordings are interwoven with 3D scans of kitchens and food trucks, tracing participants’ journeys while reflecting on the material, emotional, and creative dimensions of their work. MenuFesto highlights their contributions and invites visitors to consider the creativity, labor, and resilience of the people who feed them.
Taste of Exile is created and directed by interdisciplinary artist Illya Mousavijad and features James Beard Award–winning Mexican and Indigenous Chef Cristina Martínez, in collaboration with scholar Paloma Martinez-Cruz and graphic researcher Jeremy Patterson. MenuFesto is an archival project organized by Martinez-Cruz in collaboration with Mousavijad.
Immersive Dining Experience with Chef Cristina Martínez (time-sensitive)
April 24–25, 2026
Visitors are invited to register and participate in the centerpiece of the exhibition: a multisensory, immersive dining and VR experience tracing the life, exile, and culinary journey of James Beard Award–winner and Chef’s Table featured artist, Chef Cristina Martínez.
This participatory, immersive VR experience lasts approximately 15 minutes. During the session, participants are invited to enjoy a taco prepared by Chef Cristina Martínez and her team.
Each session accommodates up to ten participants and is fully guided. Free sessions will be offered from 12:00–7:00 PM on Friday, April 24, and Saturday, April 25.
MORE READING
The Activist Chef, The Philadelphia Citizen's Generation Change Philly
Interview with Cristina Martínez, Business Insider
Cristina Martínez's Casa Mexico, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Cristina Martínez Project Protagonist and Chef (Born Capulhuac, Mexico; lives in Philadelphia, PA) is a renowned chef, political activist, and the owner of South Philly Barbacoa and Casa Mexico. She learned the traditional barbacoa technique at an early age, and established the celebrated South Philly Barbacoa in 2015. It is known as the ultimate destination for lovers of authentic Mexican barbecue – and is recognized for its juicy slow-cooked meats and handmade tortillas. In 2022, Martínez received the James Beard Award for Best Chef, Mid-Atlantic. She has also been lauded by the Eater Awards, appeared on Bon Appétit’s Best New Restaurant list, received the first Faces of Diversity Award from the National Restaurant Association, and was the subject of an episode of the Netflix series Chef’s Table. Martínez works on behalf of immigrants’ rights in the U.S. advocating for undocumented workers in the restaurant industry.
Illya Mousavijad Project Director and Computer Animation Artist (Born Isfahan, Iran; lives in Columbus, OH) received a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and an MFA from the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania; both in Philadelphia, PA. He is Assistant Professor of Art and Technology in the Department of Art at The Ohio State University. Mousavijad is an interdisciplinary and multisensorial artist whose work navigates exile, displacement, migration, cultural memory, and belonging. His practice examines how identity and lived experience are shaped through movement, social conditions, and embodied rituals. In recent projects, he engages culinary art and food practices as sites of storytelling, labor, critical inquiry, and communal memory. He works across computer animation, virtual reality, installation, painting, sculpture, video, and participatory experiences. He has collaborated with international artists across disciplines and has exhibited his work globally.
Paloma Martinez-Cruz Project Advisor and Director of MenuFesto (Born Los Angeles, CA; lives in Columbus, OH) received a PhD from Columbia University, New York, NY and is Professor of Latinx Cultural and Literary Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese at The Ohio State University. She teaches in the areas of performance and popular culture; decolonial methods and practices; and Latin American and Latinx gender studies and feminisms. An interdisciplinary scholar-artist, she writes poetry and fiction, directs and performs with the Taco Reparations Brigade performance troupe and coordinates Onda Latinx Ohio: an arts initiative showcasing Latinx arts from the Midwest and beyond. Martinez-Cruz is the author of Trust the Circle: The Resistance and Resilience of Rubén Castilla Herrera (Arcadia Publishing, 2023), Food Fight! Millennial Mestizaje Meets the Culinary Marketplace (The University of Arizona Press, 2019) and Women and Knowledge in Mesoamerica: From East L.A. to Anahuac (The University of Arizona Press, 2011). She is the editor of A Handbook for the Rebel Artist in a Post-Democratic Society by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Saúl García-López (Routledge, 2021).
Jeremy Patterson Computer Graphics and Interactive Design Engineer (Born Findlay, OH; lives Columbus, OH) is a Senior Graphics Researcher at the Advanced Computing Center for Arts and Design at The Ohio State University. He specializes in virtual and augmented reality; computer vision, user experience design and research; and game creation. Patterson is recognized as a skilled multi-disciplinary expert who crafts integrated, interactive experiences for humans of all ages. His current research projects include a first-responder triage VR training simulation in collaboration with the Wexner Medical Center; a suite of virtual field labs in conjunction with the College of Social Work; and a mixed-reality training application for cardiac procedures in collaboration with the Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University.
This project is supported by Global Arts + Humanities | Cross-Disciplinary Exchange at The Ohio State University; as well as Greater Columbus Arts Council