The Slow Food Area at Expo 2015: Putting Biodiversity and the People who
Feed the Planet in the Spotlight
In the heart of the
Slow Food Pavilion at Expo 2015 there will be the Slow Food Theater, an open space for meeting and exchange, which will give a
voice to those women and men who today feed the planet with good, clean and
fair food.
The daily schedule
of events that will take place in the Theater include talks, debates, conferences,
presentations and film and documentary screenings, part of a calendar full of activities
aimed to tell the stories and experiences of the Slow Food network and Terra
Madre food communities, but also of civil society representatives and people
who share the Slow Food philosophy.
On May 1, 2015, Gaetano Pascale, president of Slow Food Italy, will open the Slow Food area, explaining
the reasons for our presence at the universal exposition. At 12 pm, in
celebration of International Workers' Day, Yvan Sagnet, trade unionist of the Federation of Agro-Industrial
Workers, originally from Cameroon, will focus on the phenomenon of the
denial of rights and the use of threats and intimidation in agriculture (the
so-called ‘caporalato’). Then, at 3
pm Fabio Terribile, President of the
Italian Society of Pedology will talk about the importance of fertile soil and the right to land.
On May
19 the Slow Food Pavilion will be officially
inaugurated in the presence of Slow Food International president Carlo
Petrini and Swiss architect Jacques Herzog.
In the following
weeks Expo will be a platform for Slow Food, a space for discussion and critical
reflection in an attempt to find concrete solutions for the future.
At Terra Madre Youth - the event which
from October 3 to 6 will bring young farmers, fishers, Indigenous Peoples and
students from all over the world to Milan – the Slow Food Theater will
regularly host young men and women working in food production, who will talk
about their experience, hopes and expectations for the future.
Every morning at
11 am, workshops and educational
activities will be held in the Slow Food Theater. These activities,
targeted to school groups and families, will revolve around some of Slow Food’s
main themes, such as bees, water and the fight against food waste.
Inside
the Slow Food area there will be also a space dedicated to the discovery of the diversity of wine and
raw-milk cheeses. The world of cheeses offers the perfect example of how
plant and animal biodiversity is articulated when transformed into
food. From just three simple ingredients—milk, rennet and salt—an
extraordinary diversity has resulted, with over
2,000 traditional cheeses made around the world.
There
will be a tasting of a different
selection of four types of cheese every week: one world-famous Italian
cheese; two cheeses from a specific territory, generally Slow Food Presidia;
and an international specialty. During May, visitors will taste, among others,
Bitto from the Orobiche Valleys in Italy, Sparkenhoe Red Leicester from
the UK, and Cilento Cacioricotta and
Osilo Pecorino from the island of Sardinia
in Italy. A total of 84 types of cheese
will be on rotation throughout the six months of Expo.
Next
to the Slow Cheese area, the Slow Wine Enoteca will be telling
another fascinating story of biodiversity. In Italy alone, over 600 grape varieties are still used to make wine, from Nebbiolo
to Sangiovese, Perricone and Fiano. The selection of wines, curated by
the Wine Bank in Pollenzo
(Piedmont),
will offer drinkable proof of this wide diversity, with about 200 different
wines available on rotation.
Moreover, several
short movies and documentaries, coming from all over the world and dedicated to
Slow Food themes and issues, will be screened every day to shed light on small
communities of food artisans who work in order to create an alternative to the
globalized food system. In particular, Ermanno
Olmi’s film, The Planet that Hosts Us,
will be projected in the Theater every evening at 8 pm, for the entire duration
of Expo. Slow Food wants to put the work of this great director at the end of
each day to symbolically close the activities with a deep reflection.
The structures of
the Slow Food area, built from PEFC-certified larch wood from sustainably
managed forests and designed by the Swiss
architects Herzog & de Meuron, will
host the exhibition Discover Biodiversity,
the tastings areas of Slow Cheese
and Slow Wine, the association space
and the Slow Food Editore bookshop. At
the center of the area there is also the Slow
Food Garden, with 47 species of medicinal plants, vegetables, legumes and
other species, each one with a specific role in maintaining the balance of our
ecosystem.
Finally, a new app
has been launched, Slow Food Planet,
a useful instrument for travelers. The Milan area is now mapped for all those
visitors who want to enjoy their stay in the city and surrounding areas with
Slow Food recommendations. The app suggests restaurants, locals, farmers’
markets and shops, where you can meet local producers. Slow Food Planet wants
to offer a holistic vision of the gastronomic experience, giving different
suggestions depending on the time of day or season of the year. The dictionary
is also a helpful feature, which gives definitions of terms in the dialect of
local areas, to increase access to the food cultures of the world.
For further information, please contact the Slow Food
International Press Office:
Slow Food involves over a million of people dedicated
to and passionate about good, clean and fair food. This includes chefs, youth,
activists, farmers, fishers, experts and academics in over 150 countries; a
network of around 100,000 Slow Food members linked to 1,500 local chapters
worldwide (known as convivia), contributing through their membership fee, as
well as the events and campaigns they organize; and over 2,500 Terra Madre food
communities who practice small-scale and sustainable production of quality food
around the world.
