COLAZIONE SULL’ERBA
Cantiere Galli, Rome, 2019
Curated by Domitilla Dardi
Photo: Silvana Spera
" In my family the table is the center of social life, the place where you spend most of your time together and where you exchange affections in the form of dishes.
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Moreover, in my part, to brake abruptly an excess of confidence of an interlocutor, you ask himself: "Have we ever eaten together?", as to say that sharing a meal is the minimum requirement of knowing. When I was invited to imagine a room on this theme "Desired guests" I could not help thinking of the great tables of my childhood, often laid out in the countryside during family celebrations, of which
my favorite part was the making of sauce.
So I imagined a table among the tomatoes, a plant very dear to me and with an emblematic story. Native to Mexico and Peru, the tomato plant arrived in Europe in 1540. Considered toxic for a long time and then used for ornamental purposes, the tomato became an edible food only many decades later, thanks to the process of adaptation to our climates that turned the fruit from yellow to red.
In 500 years, that appeared to us as a poison because of its exotic appearance ended up becoming a cornerstone of our gastronomic culture, an element of identity and an essential part of our economy. In the middle of this landscape with tomatoes I then imagined a table. I inspired it from the curves of Victorine Meurent in the most famous of the paintings depicting a rural meal: "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" by Manet.
Sinuous and safe, the peculiarity of this table is that of being a carpet at the same time. An object that can ideally accommodate the different ways of eating: standing, sitting, kneeling, on the ground. In fact,
I wanted my table to be open and curious, able to make every guest desired."
