From the music of Sanremo to the television pop culture of “Happy Days,” from inkwells as a memory of writing to the accessories of sporting victory, Mercante In Fera Primavera 2026 (Parma Fair, March 7-15) constructs a pop journey into the short century through shared objects, images, and imaginaries.
Ilaria Dazzi, Brand Manager: “With Mercante In Fiera Primavera, we wanted to create a twentieth-century story through objects and its imagery.”
There is a moment in collective memory when a song heard on the radio, an object placed on a desk, a sporting victory celebrated in black and white become much more than what they were. They become emotional coordinates, fragments of a shared time. Sanremo, even before being a festival, is this: a sequence of evenings, voices, and domestic rituals that have accompanied entire generations, mingling with daily life, the interiors of homes, and the objects that inhabited them. It is within this plot of memories, signs, and imaginaries that Mercanteinfiera Primavera 2026 constructs its story: a sentimental atlas of the twentieth century made up of things seen, touched, experienced.
From March 7th to 15th, at Fiere di Parma, antiques, modern antiques, and designer design become tools for reinterpreting the short century as a sedimentation of passions and desires that continue to speak to us today.
The cultural heart of the Spring 2026 edition is the program of collateral exhibitions, which are configured as a plural narrative that traverses the history of television and entertainment, the relationship between sport and the symbols of victory, writing as a material gesture, music as a collective memory, up to the mechanical imagery linked to the world of motors.
SANREMO: THE SOUNDTRACK OF A TOWN Shaping this dimension of music as a collective memory is “Sanremo 76: The Soundtrack of a Country,” an exhibition curated by Ilaria Dazzi and Simona Palo, which presents the Festival not as a simple musical event, but as a cultural device capable of spanning generations, languages, and diverse sensibilities. Through iconic photographs and archival materials from the Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive and the SIAE Historical Archive, Sanremo emerges as a space where the song has become a shared narrative, reflecting social changes, transformations in customs, and the collective emotions of a country that recognizes itself, year after year, in the same ritual.
Alongside the photographs, the original scores of pieces that have marked different eras and sensibilities —from “Grazie dei fior” to “Non ho l’età”, from “Uomini Soli” to “Luce e Sincerità” — trace a sound map that spans over seventy years of history. Each score is not just a musical score, but a material trace of an imaginary: it tells of a time, a language, a shared emotional tension.
THE OTHER EXHIBITIONS Among the scheduled exhibitions, “Victory Accessories: Awards, Ornaments, and Sport,” curated by Mara Cappelletti, explores the symbolic value of objects related to sporting competition. “Dentro Happy Days”, created in collaboration with Giuseppe Ganelli and Emilio Targia, invites you to ideally enter the set of the series through the largest collection of memorabilia in the world: from the stage scripts to Fonzie’s mechanic’s suit, from the watch dedicated to the character to the action figures of the protagonists, a collection of cult objects that rekindles the memory of the 255 episodes and shows how the series has spanned generations, becoming one of the great pop myths of the twentieth century.
“Inkpoint: The Inkwell in the Mariani Collection,” in collaboration with Mario and Marco Mariani, brings a focus on writing as a daily practice through over seventy inkwells selected from a private collection of over a thousand pieces spanning centuries of writing history.
The new edition also includes the presentation of the volume “Lucio c’è” by Marcello Balestra (Mondadori Electa), edited and moderated by Miriam De Nicolò, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of SNOB Magazine. An encounter that returns Lucio Dalla through the voice of those who experienced it firsthand.
The talk program, currently being defined, has also been confirmed in the Spring edition and is enriched by the collaboration with the GU.PHO International Festival (https://gupho.art/), which will talk about vernacular photography within the Talk Area.
“With Mercante In Fiera Primavera,” says brand manager Ilaria Dazzi, “we wanted to construct a twentieth-century story through objects and its imagery. The side exhibitions are not simply thematic insights, but chapters in a broader narrative that spans television, sports, music, writing, and design. Different objects, different eras that, together, become keys to reading a rediscovered and shared memory.”
With approximately 1,000 exhibition attendees, thousands of unique objects, and an international audience of collectors, enthusiasts, and professionals, Mercanteinfiera — an international collecting event from antiques to modern art to designer design — is not just a salon, but a living archive. Where the twentieth century is not studied. You find him again.
