To find out where is the identity, it’s a question without answer said Josè Saramago.
And if by identity it is meant the equivalence between an individual in confronting with his own personality, we clearly understand that the answer is a continuous variation, a totality of answers that change through time: a path, a meeting, a becoming.
To know how to discover a Chef’s identity, it’s a question that finds its answer in the dishes the Chef creates, in the evolution, in the transposition and the tasting of the creations.
This identity is nothing else but a turmoil of research, history, ingredients, forms, humanity, language.
A confusion which can be systemized with the help of various actors: a Chef ready to retell, a photographer who is able to capture the details a dish conceals, a reporter able to tell stories, a spectator suitable for the meeting.
Expressing one’s identity implies the Chef’s experience alongside with the spectator’s.
IDfood, a work by Marco Varoli and Gaia Bortolussi finds its place in the exact moment when a young chef, anxious to express his identity meets with the eager spectators.
Marco Varoli and Gaia Bortolussi help witness, with the help of images and words, the moment where two worlds meet, that reveals more than a simple taste would show. A complete experience that encourages even the laziest spectators, used to photographed, and discussed food. A spectator who finally finds with the help of IDfood a multidimensional food, the real, personal identity of young women and men who chose the profession of Chef and perform the role with an eager want for contact with his spectators.
Here is where the identity shines most of the time, speaks a strong language and provokes feelings.
Martina Liverani
IDfood- The Food Pictures the Cook is a photograhy project that explores the symbiosis between food and Chef’s identity.
A work that with the help of Marco Varoli’s photography and Gaia Bortolussi’s interviews tries to demonstrate how the food can reflect the Chef’s identity, and from this
point of view, it provides some interpretations of this connection.
It is important to stress the fact that food is not only nourishment, but something more. The food is an experience that implies more senses: you look at it, you touch it, you smell it, you taste it.
It’s not an unidirectional art, it is based instead, on the reciprocity between who produces and who consumes. It implies an energy transfer, therefore, it is important for who prepares the dish to witness a complete culinary experience.
With the help of dyptich photography , supported and enriched with the interviews, we wanted to emphasize on the concept that stays at the base of a Chef’s work, this way giving them the opportunity to reveal the respect for the material culture, the alimentary customs and the use of the ingredients and techniques in the composition of the culinary creations presented in IDfood.
A certain affirmation of the Identity of the Chef that distinguishes beyond the superficial: where is he from, who is he, and what he wants to transmit.
Emphasizing this way on the fact that the identity of a dish always gives hints to the person who sees and tastes it, about the person who created it. One can taste the background of the Chef throughout the dishes he creates.
The visual aspects of his creation thus, becomes his signature.
Gaia Bortolussi
More contents avalaible on: www.marco-varoli.com
