17 June 2015

For a country with as high an influx of tourists as Italy, souvenirs are good business. But for the most part they are bad copies in miniature of the icons of our artistic heritage. And the fact that they are chiefly made in countries where the cost of labor is low is another snub to the Italian tradition of the arts and crafts. So how can we produce souvenirs able to represent the variety of regional customs and cultures in a worthy manner? This is the question that Alberto Alessi asked himself at the start of Expo Milan 2015. And the result has been a set of hand-decorated porcelain figurines, each of them symbolizing a city or a region of the peninsula, along with one of the main ingredients of the local cuisine. Three are designed by Antonio Aricò, who has chosen to personify Calabria, Sicily and Venice. The figurine of Calabria is inspired by the bagnarota, the name given to a woman from the town of Bagnara who is traditionally represented with a basket on her head to carry food: Calabrisella carries on her head a large red pepper, an indispensable ingredient in Calabrian dishes. The figurine of Sicily, Rosalia la più bella che ci sia, is similar, bearing a chest filled with the typical fruit of the island: citruses, grapes and prickly pears. The Venetian one is in cooler colors, wearing a dress that recalls the sumptuous Carnival and a homage, on her head, to the principal element in the local gastronomy: fish. The two figurines by Massimo Giacon are more comic: Lella Mortadella takes us to Emilia Romagna with a voluptuous and smiling housewife, while Ciro il Pulcinella, an obvious reference to Naples, is seated at table in front of a genuine pizza. Souvenir d’Italie is a project developed in collaboration with LPWK (Laura Polinoro Workshop).