Website: VIA

Dates: October 10 – November 18 2012

Venue: VIA Gallery, 29 – 35, avenue Daumesnil, 75012 Paris

Open: monday-friday: 09.30 – 18.30, saturday-sunday: 13.00 – 18.00

Admission price: free

New York, Hanoi, Berlin, Antananarivo, La Paz, Bamako, London Bordeaux, Moscow, Havana… Ma cantine en ville will present a panoramic world round-up of habits, ways and means related to street eating. Co-produced by VIA and the Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine, the show will inaugurate the Mini Maousse 5 (1) micro-architecture competition. Like a traveller’s scrap book it will bring together all sorts of documents reflecting the wide variety of contexts and practises linked to this vital activity and the extraordinary capacity of individuals to adapt to their environment.

The content of the show derives from a call for contributions launched early this year, targeting designers, architects, teachers and – more generally – observant spirits and travellers. At the outset the aim was to collect information on the ways foodstuffs are carried, prepared, sold and eaten in public space – how things are done, where and why, etc. Almost one hundred dossiers were submitted, enabling the curators – Fiona Meadows (Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine) and Michel Bouisson (VIA) – to put together a comprehensive and detailed overview of the techniques and equipment used in urban contexts today. From coherent methods for making the most of limited storage space and conserving perishable goods, to the many ways food is prepared, cooked and enhanced by display, not to mention the ingenious ways in which food-vending outfits are made mobile.