This year’s edition of Tongue and Throat Memories opens with a ceremonial procession led by artist Ayrson Heráclito and chef Joceval Santos, both initiates of Candomblé. The audience is invited to experience the relationship between food and nature through the ceremony known as Ajeum. 

Inspired by the ancestral practice of feeding the divine forces of the earth, the performance celebrates the act of sharing. Ajeum—a Yoruba word translated as ‘eating together’—is one of Candomblé’s most important collective practices, reaffirming the communal and spiritual dimensions of eating as a gesture of connection with the sacred and with nature. 

Ajeum: A Divine Banquet is conceived as a poetic practice inspired by the Olubajé ritual; it does not mimic the sacred but rather engages in a dialogue with its symbolic power, respecting it without violating its sanctity. 

Olubajé takes place annually in August in honor of Obaluaê/Omolu, the orixá (deity) of the earth, disease, and healing. The ritual involves sharing traditional foods—such as doburu (popcorn), served on leaves—alongside expressions of gratitude and prayers for health. 

The term olubajé combines Olu (Lord or Divine King) and bajé (the act of eating and nourishing body and soul). According to one version of the myth (Itã), Obaluaê was scorned for his appearance at a banquet hosted by Xangô, the orixá of justice. Revered by Iansã—the orixá of wind and transformation—he covered himself in straw, and his sores transformed into popcorn, a symbol of healing and transformation. 
 
Participants are invited to share a meal in communion with one another and with nature, concluding with a purification ritual. The remaining food is offered to the forests and rivers, symbolizing acts of reciprocity between humans and nature.