Anna Meroni "Feeding Milano: a human platform to regain the meaning of slowness"

Food, in Latin cultures, means conviviality, pleasure, taking care of the others and being loved. How can the principle of conviviality, as pleasurable and collaborative relationship, change the way a city feed itself? Anna Meroni believes this principle impacts also the way in which producers and consumers get in touch and exchange produce and knowledge.

Anna Meroni created in Milano, together with Slow Food, a human platform supported by information technology that is designing and prototyping a number of new services to shorten the food chain and feed the city. We can see this platform as a design supported community that is experimenting a brand new system of possibilities to create a sustainable foodshed, by building a network of trust and sympathy among producers themselves and with consumers. It encourages the last mile to be a human mile and relationships to happen, which implies also for designers being there and creating human links as a way to operate. In her speech, Anna Meroni addresses the design challenge of making that possible.