In 1999 Luca Molinari and Susanna Ravelli invite seven photographers and twelve writers to display the contemporary forms of food in an exhibit at Opos Gallery that anticipates the current food craze and its rituals.
Among single portions, banquets, cocktails, canteens, markets, microwave ovens, traditional cooking, frozen, etnic and vegan food, curators search for the changes that our relationship with food has occurred. Can we still talk about food traditions? How has our perception of food changed?
Global retailing, greenhouse cultivation, big migrations and food marketing are only a few reasons to frame a very complex scenario. “Food becomes a territory to emotionally explore” say curators, “regardless of distances it is the origin of a personal imagery that soothes, shelters or, on the contrary, presents a conflict, a pretext for world complexity.”
The exhibit includes four special evenings “to listen, talk, debate and taste”: “Convivio: le relazioni e la vita a tavola” (Convivium: relationships and life around a table), “Immagini e scrittura: cibo tra comunicazione e arte” (Images and writing: food between communication and arts); “Laboratorio del gusto: cioccolato e vino” (Taste workshop: chocolate and wine); “Frontiere contemporanee del cibo” (Food contemporary boundaries). Every event involves readings and the contribution by professionals from different disciplines such as Alan Bay (gastronomy critic), Vincenzo Castella (photographer), Jos Lighhart (researcher), Giacomo Papi (journalist) and Marco Riva (technologist).