‘Autarchy’ is an installation that proposes an autonomous way of producing goods and outlines a hypothetical scenario where a community is embracing a serene and self inflicted embargo where nature is personally cultivated, harvested and processed, to feed and make tools to serve human necessities.
‘Baked’ it is ispired by a Sicilian folk event in Salemi, where a flour based material is used to create architectural decorations.The project is a homage to bread and flour and to the craftsmanship of baking and cooking.
Intruding on the standard production method, we introduce unexpected meaning and craft into a mass produced goods.
‘Moulding Tradition’ was informed by the Sicilian ceramic tradition of ‘Teste di Moro’, copies of 17th century vases from Sicily that portray a grotesque Moorish face. Through ‘Moulding Tradition’ we question the notion of national identity and the custom of craft to mindlessly perpetuate the past.
The objects displayed in the ‘Botanica’ collection are designed as if the oil- based era, in which we are living, never took place. As if historians, we investigated the pre-bakelite period, discovering unexpected textures, feelings and technical possibilities offered by natural polymers extracted from plants or animal-derivatives.
The low chair ‘Domestica’ is an investigation of rural craft and its archetypes. The reference is to the gerla basket, a container usually used by farmers to collect harvested cereals and transported as a bag-pack.
18th century rococo decors of romantic roses and perfectly symmetrical leaves, exist today through traditional needlepoint techniques, forcing nature into mans image. As a reaction to this idealised representation of nature, we designed a collection of three rugs inspired by the work of 19th century ornithologist Jan James Audubon.
‘Colony’ is a series of mohair and mixed media blankets that refers to a major colony that Italy held until the mid 1940s. The series is a prescient account of the impact of Italian imperialism on the urban infrastructure of these former colonies and the complex relationship these countries now have with Italy.
