Reserved for

“Cooking is a language in which a society unconsciously translates its structure”, claimed Claude Lévi Strauss, because food includes in its own essence social, communicational and emotional values. The rituals and gestures that come with food and tell how we are “at the table” describe better than any words the dynamics of the relationships, of the education and of the behaviour of a given social structure.
Especially in the fields of product and interior design, the table is becoming more and more the focus of projects, an
opportunity to “experiment the extraordinary in the ordinary” and to offer a reinterpretation of daily actions, habits and behaviours – which can appear superficial but open to important innovation opportunities instead. The secret is, as always, to be able to go beyond habits and learn how to give a new meaning to every day’s gestures.
Despite the many initiatives continuously originated and developed around the theme of food, the exhibition Reserved For tries to offer an original contribution. By observing and telling what has been happening in the geographies of the table in the very last years, the exhibition becomes a variegated excursus: moving freely among products “made of food” or “for food” and relationships structured “around food”, it highlights the related cultural and symbolic roles, as well as the connected anthropologic value, of each instance.