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.

The main activities unfolded between September and October, at the heart of autumn—a season of return to the earth, of seeds planted in the soil, and leaves falling to rediscover roots. Autumn became a living metaphor for the cycles of life: a slow rhythm of transformation, anticipation, and renewal. In Chinese culture, this season resonates with the Mid-Autumn Festival, a celebration of reunion and reflection on the lunar phases, reminding us that life, like the moon, waxes, wanes, and returns to fullness.

Drawing from these seasonal images, ROOTED RITUALS explored urgent contemporary themes around food systems: climate change, sustainability, urban food harvesting, consumption and recycling practices, food waste, and cultures of care. Through embodied narratives, collective rituals, open-source methods, and co-design, the project promoted food literacy, seasonal eating, and mindful practices. By reviving agricultural gestures and food-centered rituals as participatory art forms, it offered the community poetic and tangible tools to imagine new ways of inhabiting the world through what we eat.

ROOTED RITUALS was inaugurated during Milano Green Week in the former Crescenzago cemetery, now transformed into a small urban grove at the city’s edge. This event marked the beginning of a collective journey made of glances, gestures, writings, thoughts, and flavors. In this open space, participants from diverse backgrounds came together through hands-on activities and shared moments. Food, the seasons, and simple daily actions became instruments of wonder, inviting reflection on the value of rituals and the care we offer one another.

A central part of ROOTED RITUALS was the celebration of life cycles, coinciding with the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, a tradition dedicated to reunion and reflection on the phases of the moon. Inspired by the concept “the moon changes, as life does”, the event took place in an urban green oasis, weaving together a food design workshop, contemporary performance, and a convivial aperitivo under the open sky. Beneath the waxing moon, the garden became a poetic space where gestures, flavors, and natural rhythms engaged in harmonious dialogue.

As a natural extension of the celebration, a ritual was held in a library, where tradition and future met in a food design workshop. Through lunar and seasonal metaphors, participants explored the relationship between food, nature, and community, reflecting on sustainability and conscious consumption. This co-design and collective storytelling experience used the moon as a poetic guide to imagine new rituals and more resilient food systems.

The second half of the project proposed urban explorations across landscapes and communities through a performative workshop format using action-cards. The first stage, Noi Siamo Natura, took place in the Orti di Via Padova, where participants explored body and nature within urban space, interacting with the vegetal landscape and experimenting with adaptive movements. The silent, itinerant path encouraged mindful observation, environmental connection, and reflection on the relationship between city and nature.

Camminare tra Culture transformed the city into a stage of encounters and memories, interweaving urban food systems and cultural diversity. Along Via Padova, a symbolic multicultural neighborhood, participants followed a silent itinerary, observing how food, traditions, and communities influence one another. This sensory and participatory experience opened spaces for dialogue with the urban fabric, revealing forms of exchange and coexistence that food generates within multicultural spaces, and unveiling the city as an ecosystem of shared relationships.

Acque in Dialogo transformed the city’s waterways into tools for observation and listening. Along the Naviglio Martesana, participants embarked on a silent walk, taking part in collective actions to rediscover water as a vital and symbolic element, observing its dialogue with the urban environment. The experience encouraged reflection on sustainability and daily life, inviting participants to perceive the body in poetic relation with the river and the landscape, turning the flow of water into a gesture of shared attention.

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.

Promoter
Feed Your Future – co-funded by the European Union
Comune di Milano
Food Policy Milano
Rede DLBC Lisboa

Organizer
JOYY! Food Design
Laboratorio Silenzio
Social Design Lab
APICAIA Associazione per Interscambio Culturale Artistico Italia Asia

Project Lead
Yue Liu

Project Team
Mattia Azzoni
Cecilia Banfi
Jiashu Chen
Ya-Fen Chen
Serena Crocco
Marta Gavazzi
Chiara Grandini
Yunxi He
Yue-Ting Hung
Petar Lefterov
Joyce Tang
Carlo M. Vella
Yi-Ming Wang
Mingxuan Wu
Elvira Zhao

Workshop Facilitation
Cecilia Banfi
Chiara Grandini
Yue Liu
Mingxuan Wu

Performer
Cecilia Banfi
Giulia De Lorenzi
Marta Gavazzi
Federica Gazzotti
Chiara Grandini
Petar Lefterov
Yue Liu
Monica Radaelli
Benedetta Solfrizzo
Carlo M. Vella
Yi-Ming Wang

Copy Editing and Translation
Yue Liu

Graphic and Editorial Design
Elvira Zhao

Photography
Mattia Azzoni
Elvira Zhao
Eleonora Rettori

Video Shooting and Production
Elvira Zhao
Yue Liu

2025