Expo Milano, the 2015 World Fair, promised visitors an experience that would change how we imagine feeding the planet in the generations to come. Dozens of nations constructed monumental pavilions and spectacles, creating a Disneyland-like environment of cleverly concealed technologies and mass entertainment. For the 20 million people who came to play at social justice or sample bites of sustainability, what did Expo Milano really offer? What questions were asked, what experiences created, and what did visitors leave with at the end of the day? This article critiques the event for its profit-based design and logics, depicting a theme park simulacrum that gave visitors a high tech but empty-handed role in thinking or doing foodways differently. In addition to examining Expo Milano's shortcomings, I also point to the kinds of innovations and interactions that might allow us to imagine a more dynamic—and challenging—future of food.

Keywords:
Expo Milano, World Fair, play, innovation, corporate logics, technology, sustainability, labor, agriculture
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2016
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