A collective pizza that is a real melting pot of traditions and flavors because it was prepared with ingredients from various cultures of the world. “Informal Lunch” is one of the workshops within the EDI Global Forum, the international event of Fondazione Morra Greco in collaboration with the Campania Region, which brought together in Naples over 100 cultural institutions from all over the world (including MoMA, Victoria & Albert, Stedelijk), representing 30 countries and all 5 continents.
Conceived by the artist Eugenio Tibaldi, “Informal Lunch” took place in Piazza Garibaldi – the beating heart of the city, which is also, by natural vocation, a true melting pot – on the last day of the second edition of the EDI Global Forum. 15 young women from Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Bolivia, Algeria, Pakistan and Georgia took part in the workshop, each acting as spokesperson for their own experiences.
Migrant women who frequent the intercultural center Officine Gomitoli of Dedalus Cooperativa Sociale – partner of the initiative that for over forty years has promoted meetings and coexistence between differences – and who are part of the project SCIC Citizen System for Community Integration financed by the National Fund for Migration Policies of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies, led by the Municipality of Naples – Department of Social Policies. The participants were invited to imagine a menu of informal pizzas, combining the traditional ingredients of pizza – symbol and specialty of the city of Naples – flavors, spices and recipes from their country of origin or that in some way evoke it.
Combining a need like eating with the exercise of a trans-community practice, these pizzas tell the story of the encounter between a community of origin and a community of arrival, thus prefiguring one of the future. During the day, the pizzas were then prepared by Tibaldi together with the group of women, also involving the participants of the EDI Global Forum and the patrons of Piazza Garibaldi. The convivial moment playfully activated the invitation to rethink the immutability of tradition, cities and the meaning of "identity". This is how pizzas with original flavors were born, such as the "Fantasia Algeria" (couscous with carrots, boiled potatoes, spicy pepper, chickpeas, walnuts, almonds, grapes and eggs) plus tomato and mozzarella or the "Dehati Pizza" with onion, green olives, bitter pumpkin, pepper, fried chicken, tomato and mozzarella.
"Pizza is a symbol of the city of Naples and we wanted to imagine one of the future, involving people who live in the city but come from different countries. Pizza thus takes on different identities and is not just a food, but is transformed into an element capable of aggregating, of feeding and, at the same time, of telling stories, becoming the spokesperson of a message of inclusion", explained Eugenio Tibaldi. "EDI Global Forum confirms itself as a necessary window on the times we live in, times in which the need for education in culture is increasingly evident, but above all to understand each other, shake hands, get in tune with the other from ourselves", explained Maurizio Morra Greco, president of the Morra Greco Foundation.
Article published on November 1, 2023 - 14:34
