Milan, Italy, Expo 2015. At only one year from the prestigious global event, to mark the exact beginning of a 365-day count down, Expo-Sing, A World in a Cup was launched, a series of photographs shot byElisabetta Lattanzio Illy while travelling around the south-hemisphere.

Organised by Contrasto with the support of Expo Milano 2015 – Provincia di Milano, the exhibition is a tribute to our planet’s beauty,  the humanity of people that despite coming from different cultures, have in common deep feelings and sensitivity, but also the uniqueness of their products.

Africa, Asia, Latin America Latina became part of an itinerary focused on the discovery of the routes followed by tea, coffee and cocoa.

The exhibition will unwind following a path that will touch different locations: from the Expo’s pavillions in the coffee and cocoa clusters, to the heart of the city thanks to the magnificent display createdby Contrasto at Palazzo Isimbardi. 

The charm of uncontaminated spaces, the colours of the plantations, the farmers’ faces and moreover, their hands, the look in their eyes, their gestures: each picture proves how each reality is unique and different from the others. Ethereal images are combined with more crude shots, which expose the often backward lifestyle workers, the tough working conditions, but also malnutrition, illiteracy and poor environmental sustainability. A world confined to silence, of which no-one wants to talk about, possibly inconvenient or maybe just an unknown dimension that once discovered, is still difficult to accept.

In Expo-sing: a World in a Cup, tea, coffee and cocoa represent the starting point of a journey made of images that finally highlights the culture, the geography and the history of both producing and consuming countries.

Elisabetta Lattanzio Illy, born in Trieste in 1966 has always been passionate about photography. She has worked in the past for many lifestyle and enogastronomic magazines.  Journalist and photographer, she published her first book ‘L’Aroma del Mondo’ (The World’s aroma) in 2010, a journey though the world of coffee, followed by Foglie di Tè (Tea Leaves) in 2013.