The second half of the project ROOTED RITUALS proposed urban explorations across landscapes and communities through a performative workshop format using action-cards. The last stage, Mercato che Vive, opened a perspective on the connections between food, territory, and community. Inside the Lorenteggio Market and in the surrounding areas, participants followed a silent itinerary, engaging in small collective actions and guided observations to discover how the market becomes a space of relationship, exchange, and care. The experience highlighted everyday food-related practices, revealing the market as a living place of sociality, culture, and sustainability, where each act of buying and sharing becomes an opportunity for participation and community-building.

Participants walked through the Mercato Lorenteggio and the surrounding areas, combining writing and performative actions to explore, engage with, and reinterpret gestures, memories, and everyday interactions. In EVERYDAY GESTURES, they mimicked movements of cutting, weighing, or serving as small shared rituals. With WHAT MAKES US SIMILAR, they wrote what connects people and displayed the sheets on the window, creating a collective mosaic. During MARKET AS, they left ideas to enrich the space in the book corner. In MARKET MEMORIES, they wrote memories linked to market experiences and hung them on the wall. With FIL ROUGE, they connected points and objects in Parco Alan Curdi, symbolically extending the market’s space. The final action, CARE FOR YOU, brought everyone together in a circle at Parco Giambellino for a collective gesture dedicated to caring for food, people, and the environment, highlighting how participation and attention can transform everyday life into a shared ritual.

About ROOTED RITUALS

ROOTED RITUALS is a site-specific public art initiative that weaves together participatory performances and food design workshops, fostering meaningful and embodied connections between people and food. The project emerged as one of the winners of the European call Feed Your Future – Engaging Youth for Creative Climate Action, promoted by Rede DLBC Lisboa and coordinated by the Municipality of Milan within the Creative Europe framework. It was realized through the collaboration of JOYY! Food Design, Laboratorio Silenzio, Social Design Lab, and APICAIA – Association for Italy-Asia Cultural and Artistic Exchange. Activities took place in selected neighborhoods of Milan, areas where access to food knowledge and cultural participation is often limited, yet ripe for new narratives and shared spaces.