The Vernacular Social Club contributed to the 3rd edition of the Gu.Pho festival in the wonderful town of Guigla, about 40 minutes south of Bologna, in a magnificently run-down castle. VSC member Erik Kessels, who has also been exhibiting there, initiated the connection.

The Vernacular Social Club asked members to send in materials toward the theme “The Great Feast – La Grande Bouffe.” This will also be a theme of REVU issue III. The exhibition, which featured images and videos supplied by members, was a sort of experimentation toward the REVU issue. As you can see in the images, the VSC team made an installation in the former kitchen of the castle.

Further exhibitions by VSC members featured work by Lukas Birk, Jean-Marie Donat, and Erik Kessels, who presented work in conjunction with Thomas Sauvin and Karel de Mulder with their “Incomplete Encyclopedia of Touch.”

Great thanks to Sergio Smerieri, who organized the festival with his team, Marcello and Giorgia.

Listen to The Photo Vault episode on the Gu.Pho Festival

La Grande Bouffe / The Big Feast

The Vernacular Social Club presentedd a grand feast for your eyes, mouths, bellies, and eventually the toilet bowl. At the heart of “La Grande Bouffe” lies an exploration of excess – an indulgence-driven narrative that mirrors the voracious appetite of contemporary consumerism. The exhibition focused on food serving as a poignant metaphor for the broader consumerist ethos that permeates our daily lives. The title “La grande Bouffe” is borrowed from a 1973 French–Italian satirical film directed by Marco Ferreri. It stars Marcello Mastroianni, Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, and Andréa Ferréol. Four friends gather in a villa for the weekend, with the expressed purpose of eating themselves to death. A fatal feast. We explored in this display the extent to which we as a society go when it comes to food, its preparation, display, and consumption.