ALPE PRAGAS - MON-FRI: 8:00 - 12.00 & 13.00 - 18.00 | SAT: 09.00 - 12.30 & 13.30 - 18.00 | SUN: CLOSED
Livia Sala: master of culinary staging
Livia Sala, a recognised Italian food stylist, describes her work with concise simplicity: “I’m mainly concerned with what happens on the plate.” She uses the mise en place as a framework to embed a recipe in an emotional story. She has been developing recipes for the publishing and advertising world for over twenty years, enhancing the raw materials available through a synergistic imagination that captures the meaning of the narrative. This already exists long before the visible result.
As when it all began while she was still a student at university, she would flick through recipe magazines, intrigued to find out who might be behind this small, fragrant work of art. There are thousands upon thousands of recipes in her portfolio, providing the kind of sensory contamination that can be savoured when browsing through Alpe Praga’s recipes. “It’s a profession that is practised in collaboration. Different skills come together on set to optimise the work, because the perfect picture can also take hours of shooting. And it’s important to know how a freshly picked strawberry leaf will behave over time. The amount of improvisation that goes into each piece relies on collaboration with art directors, content creators and prop stylists who take care of the props that highlight the product I have to create.” With a mixture of craft and artistry, she creates identification in the viewer, the socalled cognitive desire.
Technique, research and knowledge of food chemistry and the play of light and shadow and then the rhythm: the invisible score that touches the heart of the product and its maker comes from the dialogue with the client and their mission, the basis of the narrative and Livia’s trademark. We experienced one of the most beautiful shoots right in Stefan and Karoline’s kitchen. The final image is like a record of the environment in which it was created.
The abundant icing sugar falls exactly where it shouldn’t, adding vibrancy to the image, while gooseberry preserve nestles on the waffles, while the seeming randomness of a daisy on the halved fresh fruit is a leap into spring, almost as if you could feel the fresh air through an invisible window. The maritozzo with ricotta is captured by the photographer with a spoonful of raspberry, strawberry and elderflower compote on a tablecloth that looks as if it has just been laid.
“We owe everything to the empathy that develops around this cabinet of curiosities, which structures the set around the recipe to be told with a precise effect.” Post-production adds the necessary glamour.
A synergetic painting with a text written by several hands, but executed by the expert hands of Livia, who knows how to breathe life into the ingredients and give them the necessary push to go beyond the two-dimensionality of the image. “If the raw material is made with care, it is natural to work it with equal care.” Livia Sala, food stylist, a little bit chef, a little bit artist, brings a contemporary sense of food representation that recalls the magic of a De Chirico when he pays homage to Jupiter between bananas and pomegranates (The Transformed Dream, 1913).
