"Il gusto di una città - Trieste capitale del caffè"

A CUTTING-EDGE MULTIMEDIA EXHIBITION CONCEIVED AS A GEOGRAPHICAL AND THEMATIC EXTENSION OF THE EXPO AND ITS COFFEE CLUSTER, SHOWCASING TRIESTE AND ITS ROLE AS THE CAPITAL OF COFFEE THROUGH HISTORY, ECONOMICS, TRADITION, LIFESTYLE AND BUSINESS, INCLUDING SHOWS, TASTINGS, A BOOKSHOP AND EVENTS AT THE SALONE DEGLI INCANTI THROUGHOUT THE EXHIBITION.

Trieste, 21 July 2015 - One of the most widely-consumed beverages on the planet, coffee is an elixir with a thousand aromas and a sensorial experience whose roots go far back in time. It is also an inspiration for innovation, research and the future.
Since 1719 a freeport for the Hapsburg Empire on the Mediterranean, Trieste’s wharves have been the landing point for millions of sacks of coffee bound for Mitteleuropa's most famous cafés. Trieste still maintains a strong, deep-rooted coffee-inspired culture built on work, business, research and “taste”, and to this day remains a point of reference on the international panorama.

From 22 July to 8 November, the Salone degli Incanti plays host to the “Il gusto di una città - Trieste capitale del caffè" exhibition [The Taste of a City - Trieste, Capital of Coffee]. Open to the public free of charge, the exhibition tells the complex, multi-national and multicultural story of coffee and the role the city of Trieste has played over the centuries in making and selling coffee.

Promoted by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region government, the Municipality of Trieste, the Trieste Chamber of Commerce, illycaffè and the Trieste Coffee Cluster, the event is associated with Expo 2015, for which illycaffè is Official Coffee Partner and curator of the Coffee Cluster.

The exhibition draws on a great many groundbreaking elements: interactive exhibitions and itineraries, multimedia devices, photographs and video montages, as well as music and concerts that evoke the historic atmosphere of this beverage, roundtables and teaching workshops curated by the Università del Caffè, a themed bookshop and, of course, a bar for tasting the finest coffee-based preparations.
Conceived by Carlo Bach, illycaffè’s artistic director, the event embodies the taste and exoticism of travel to far-off lands, long sea crossings and merchants’ tales, carrying on and adapting the key theme of the Coffee Cluster at Expo Milano, of which it is conceptually and officially an integral part. The story of coffee unfurls across the Salone’s walls from bean to cup, illustrated and explained in partnership with Trieste’s Università del Caffè. Giovanni Damiani was in charge of executive planning and work supervision; Villaggio Globale International was responsible for general coordination.
The exhibition consists of large prints of work by pre-eminent photographer Sebastiao Salgado as part of a twelve-year project for illy spanning ten different countries. The exhibition is enriched by four multimedia booths, dedicated respectively to Salgado's photographs, coffee locations in Trieste, the Trieste Coffee Exhibit, and an exhibition in the community conceived by the Trieste Coffee Cluster that “links” coffee locations in Trieste and uses oculus rift technology for virtual visits to the Coffee Cluster in Milan.

"Il gusto di una città - Trieste capitale del caffè" conjures up the atmospheres of historic locations important in establishing Mitteleuropean Trieste in the collective imagination: the haunts of writers, artists and thinkers, particularly during the 19th and 20th centuries, when coffee was elevated to the position of the official beverage of culture. Trieste’s experience was repeated in Vienna, Prague and Budapest, the other Mitteleuropean capitals of coffee. Mega-screens on the Salone walls show very rare historical photos of these cities and their literary cafes from archives at the Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, the City Museum of Prague, and the Trieste Fototeca at the Civici Musei di Storia ed Arte.

Two montages are also on show: one is of clips from various periods and nations involved in coffee, spanning practically every genre from comic to dramatic, westerns and thrillers. Major directors (Dreyer, Ford, Lang, Rossellini, Chaplin, Hitchcock, Edwards, Pietrangeli and Visconti) have succeeded in portraying coffee with the same skill that they have lavished on the most human of themes. From Totò to Mastroianni, Tognazzi and Benigni, Italian comedy has woven coffee into some of its finest moments. Curated and edited by Francesca Bergamasco, the montage is produced by the “I mille occhi” Festival del Cinema e delle Arti, which is directed by Sergio M. Germani. The second, equally impressive original montage shows coffee as it has been depicted on RAI-Radio Televisione Italiana over half a century of broadcasts, offering an engaging snapshot of how lifestyle, fashion and taste have evolved in Italy from the Second World War to the present day.
By day, workshops, debates and roundtables are being held on artistic, technological and scientific aspects of coffee, as well as musical cabaret and child-oriented events under the banner “Milk&Coffee”.
In the evenings, the public is invited to a particularly rich programme of events and concerts featuring top names from the worlds of music and culture, including star jazz trumpeter Enrico Rava; Čaikovskij prize-winning pianist Pietro de Maria with actor Sandro Lombardi; Serb pianist Vladimir Maric with Vanni De Lucia; writer Slobodanca Ciric; double bass player Marc Abrams and jazz saxophonist Pietro Tonolo, fado and tango from CIRKUSZ-KA of Budapest, CAFEBAUM ENSEMBLE’s baroque music plus other emerging groups, not to mention great raconteur Moni Ovadia and readings by Omero Antonutti, Mariano Rigillo and Anna Teresa Rossini.

 

Contact www.triestecapitaledelcaffe.it for the full programme.

 

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