An Interview with Antonella Tignanelli
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do...
I am a chef and I do many different things around food. Nowadays my work is mostly focused on research about sociological and cultural aspects of food consumption and the recreation of old traditions. I started cooking when I was very young, inspired by my grandmother. After a while, my curiosity took me to travel around the world to be able to learn from various people in different cultures, and that "trip" lasted about ten years. It was then when I felt the need to document all the amazing landscapes and people I was encountering and photography became a great ally for that, and at some point it also became my language.
2. A question you are trying to answer right now is...
Why don't people accept each other's beliefs and use them to create distance instead?
3. In some ways your disciplines are opposites, food is consumable whereas photo solidifies in time. How have you been feeling about impermanence vs. permanence in your art, or other avenues?
I think permanence and impermanence are subjective. A dish can be very present in someone's memory for years, while an image can pass totally unattended for others. Permanence is memory and intention for me, not strictly related to the physical world. Although it is true that what might have attracted me from photography, was a tool for documentation, which tends to make permanent the impermanent lets say, or at least visible for others who weren't a part of that moment in time.
4. Describe a favorite photo in words...
A woman takes a blanket out of the window to air it. It is one of many windows of a beautiful social housing project by a Catalan architect. Everything is a bit blurry, there is movement in the fabric and in the woman. The building is standing still.
5. And a dish for the end of summer...
With the last of the white nectarines & tomatoes, green beans, burrata, basil, shallots, sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt & pepper. A few slices of toasted sourdough bread. A glass of orange wine. Another small plate with jamón maybe too.
See more of Antonella here.
