Projects

The project originates from the necessity of making the lithologies and genetic processes of rocks familiar and memorable in a simple and immediate way to non-geologists.
The use of stones for the preparation, cooking, preservation, and consumption of food has accompanied us since ancient times.
Stones and minerals are also among the “hidden” components that confer particular organoleptic properties like flavor, aroma, aftertaste, intensity, and persistence to agricultural products and food in general.
Moreover, the pattern of many stones is characterized by the spatial arrangement of minerals and granules, reminiscent of certain culinary preparations.
The project is presented in the form of a workshop, offering a journey into the multifaceted relationships between stones and food: from the exploration of processes for creating containers of dishes for preparation, cooking, preservation, and consumption; to the significance of the raw material (mineral), which is decisive for the properties and types of use of the artifact, closely linked to cultures, civilizations, and territory; to which of our daily tastes we owe gratitude to the geological nature (stones) of the production area; to imagining stones that might have formed much like some preparations taken from the secret recipe book of Nature’s kitchen.
The project is designed as an experiential journey, where visitors are given the opportunity to choose the path that intrigues them the most, discover and interact with samples of ingredients, stones, and artifacts.
The project was included in the calendar of the following events:
Bergamoscienza – editions 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
Settimana del Pianeta Terra – editions 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
Agricoltura Bg – edition 2017 (G7 of the Ministers of Agriculture)
In 2016, the project was awarded the scientific dissemination prize by the Italian Society of Mineralogy and Petrography.

The project emerges from the need to connect with and help remember, in a simple and immediate manner, the integrative aspects of ornamental stones beyond their purely aesthetic qualities to non-geologists.
The project is presented as a workshop with a collection of unique pieces of natural stone, carefully selected to guide visitors on a journey exploring the skin of stones and the sensations that may arise from a multisensory encounter.
The experiences will first be tactile and auditory, then visual, thus reversing the habit of prioritizing what we see over what we perceive with other senses.
The key players in this proposal are therefore the visitors, their perceptions, and their emotions; the stone surfaces, transformed by time and/or by man, are the means through which the unusual and curious “other senses”-vision path unfolds.