THE ITINERANT BANQUET OF PAPER FLOWERS

Workshop / Public Itinerant Performance, 2019–ongoing

One of the longest-running and most representative formats of my experimental workshop practice, developed to create a shared, immersive, and participatory experience. The itinerant banquet is a small mobile space, built entirely from recycled materials, where I create my alien paper flowers to offer to people. Those who receive a flower engage directly with the creative process, observing the artwork come to life before their eyes. Spectators can also actively participate in making a flower, taking home a small fragment of the experience.

In this project, the boundary between workshop, performance, and public artwork dissolves. The banquet becomes a meeting and interaction space—a collective aesthetic experience that emphasizes the relationship between artist and audience. Each flower symbolizes care, shared creativity, and a temporary bond: the work exists not merely as an object, but as gesture, process, and exchange.

The idea stems from a desire to invert the traditional workshop dynamic: instead of people coming to the artist, the artist goes to the public. The mobile banquet appears in urban spaces unexpectedly, reaching an unprepared audience and generating curiosity and wonder. The performance is also in its very movement: seeing the banquet travel, traverse spaces, and transform itinerancy into a poetic and relational gesture.

The project also serves as an experiment in the banquet itself: different versions, weights, assembly methods, aquatic adaptations, and modifications for diverse contexts demonstrate its flexibility and functionality. Each intervention adheres to the same principle: participatory art, moving artwork, and direct interaction between creator and audience.

Since 2019, the format has traveled throughout Italy: from Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, to Triennale di Milano, to the 2024 Venice Biennale, to Art Week Torino 2023, to various public and urban art festivals, and in spaces such as Galleria Il Vicolo in Milan and Street Levels Gallery in Florence.

Materials: paper and recycled materials