Del Popolo is a mobile pizzeria committed to creating rustic Neapolitan-inspired pizza using ingredients sourced from small, generational producers.
Del Popolo is housed in a twenty-foot transatlantic shipping container that’s been re-purposed and modified into a kitchen. A wall of glass doors exposes the interior, including the traditional Italian-made wood-fired oven.
Huang Qingjun wanted to shoot the families outside of their homes with the items they lived with, so people could see the fast development and changing lifestyles Chinese families were experiencing both inside and outside of their homes. Family portraits from various Northern provinces were captured.
Through challenging camera angles Menno Aden abstracts most familiar actual living environments and public interiors into flattened two-dimensional scale models. A camera that the artist installed on the ceiling of various rooms takes pictures downwards of the interiors. The resulting images lay out space in symmetrical compositions that look like assemblages stripped off any kind of objectivity. The views into private homes and secret retreats bring up associations of the ubiquitous observation camera. The notion of surveillance is systematically played out by the artist to hint at society’s voyeuristic urge that popular culture has made mainstream.