The Adventures of the Interplanetary Egg is the title of a project by Italian photographer Carlo Ottaviano Casana, in which dazzling white eggs are shown alongside old mechanisms and rusty tools to create a bizarre, delicate, almost theatrical atmosphere.
With their ironic and playful approach, these "landscapes" transform the perfection and purity of eggs into a sort of spaceship ready to blast off towards unknown galaxies.
Intrigued by this project, Fine Dining Lovers addressed some questions to Casana, in order to learn how the idea first came about and what sort of relationship he himself has with food.
What lies behind the idea of the interplanetary egg and its adventures?
Last spring, I was thinking about what I could photograph during the days I planned to stay in the Tuscan countryside that same summer. While browsing through a book on French still life artworks of the 1700s, I encountered once more a painting of a basket of eggs by Louis Tessier and decided that that would be the subject of my work: I had in mind the eggs by Tessier, as well as those photographed by Man Ray, Paul Outerbridge, and Hans Finsler. On my arrival, I started taking shots, without however finding a meaning or the right key. So, I took a look at the cellar and rummaged through the stables until I happened to glance a box full of iron parts, mechanisms and old pieces of equipment, most of which had become rusty. When I took a closer look, I spotted a ferrule. I immediately saw it as a spaceship. I disentangled it from the other bits and pieces and dusted it off. In the meantime, the interplanetary egg took up its position at the helm: it took off on its interplanetary missions and I went on taking senseless photos.