The Forest Feast is a research project organized by Annalaura Fornasier, MA Architecture student at the Royal College of Art in London.
The thesis project wishes to use Vaia storm as a trigger of change that could be taking place in the Alpine territory of the Dolomites in the North-East of Italy. The project investigates the role that culture can acquire in the management of the post-Vaia context. If culture is seen as an agent, how can it mediate in a post-disaster landscape? How can food, as a cultural element, become a tool for the interpretation and management of the post-Vaia Dolomites? The design and methodology that stems from this research will aim to evaluate how local culture can approach and re-assess a landscape affected by a disastrous event, and how it can be translated into a place of opportunity.
The Forest Feast aim at investigating the role that culture can acquire in the management of the post-Vaia context. A first instance, that has been identified through which to engage with the post-Vaia context, is by focusing on the culture of food. Food becomes a vessel through which to ask questions about place and explore the site. The thesis identifies different ways of mediating with the landscape, at first through the engagement with food, by foraging, preparing, cooking and eating. This first instance of the project culminated in the preparation of a banquet, a forum where questions on culture, landscape and regeneration were all laid out on the table. A second mediation was done through the use of film and cinematic techniques to record the banquet and the interaction between the guests invited to feast on it. The film explores how the relationship between the banquet and the context, its guests and the themes suggested through the dishes prepared can be portrayed and used to develop a reaction.
The banquet, entitled the Forest Feast, was made possible thanks to the collaboration with chef Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun, initiator of Prometheus_Open Food Lab. Lorenzo prepared a menu based on his experimental research with foraged edibles gathered from the Cadore forests and paired with exotic elements. Dolomiti Contemporanee hosted the banquet at Progettoborca, Ex-Eni Village (Borca di Cadore, Belluno, Veneto, Italy): an iconic place of encounter between landscape and architectural intervention. The Forest Feast banquet wished to be an opportunity for dialogue, between locals and foresters on Vaia, issues of landscape and ideas of regeneration. Dialogues and opinions emerged from the meal, will contribute to developing the next phase of the thesis project: a strategy for the design of a future post-disaster cultural landscape.
In collaboration with:
Director, editor, set design: Annalaura Fornasier
Chef: Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun
Guest, set design: Angelica Furlotti
Guest: Elena Maierotti
Guest: Palalo Cargnel
Guest: Gianluca D’Incà Levis
Chef: Lorenzo Barbasetti di Prun
Chef assistant and production support: Camilla Glorioso
Drone and Camera: Alessandro Lana
Photography, Camera, set design: Luca Anzalone
Location: Progettoborca (Borca di Cadore, Belluno, Veneto, Italy)
Sound Design: Tommaso Mosole
Footage from: 1858, 2020, 5:56” – Formafantasma, Cambio – 2020
