Caltagirone is a small city in Sicily, famous for its ceramics and its purported local tradition. Three hundred craftsmen are working in the city. In Caltagirone, craft it is not rare.

Different historical ages, styles and forms are mixed together into the world of tradition: a non-historical magma where objects lose their original meaning to become traditional.

Some questions emerge:

-Is the role of craft to testify and keep the past alive?

-Is there a future for our present if we only guarantee a perpetual existence to past?

As an iconic base and as inspiration, we used one of the most famous traditional Sicilian artwork: “teste di moro”. These are copies of vases of the 17th century that display the face of a native African. These artifacts refer to a period of Sicilian history when Arab-African people conquered Sicily. Due to this invasion the tradition of majolica started in Italy and later in other European countries.

History repeats itself.

While craftsmen are working, making vases with African features referring to

the history of 10th century ago, the same people that once occupied Sicily, bringing their culture and the material Majolica, are returning not as conquerors, but as immigrants. Every day during the summer, 500 clandestine travelers from Africa are debarking in Lampedusa, a small Sicilian island in the middle of Mediterranean Sea.

Based on a recent public-opinion poll, 65% of Italians believe that immigrants are "a danger for our culture and our religion". With a similar attitude towards change, craft maintains its constant repetition of objects which belong to the past.

Our project is a statement on the ephemeral concept of tradition and shows the contradictions of a decadent culture: if as Italians (and Europeans) we are able to represent our culture with a "Moor vase", at the same time we must be able to go beyond prejudice and fear, and to let our culture change in the course of time.

THE OBJECTS

In the collection of objects, the artifact "teste di moro" and other traditional vases, have been re-thought based on the actual clandestine immigration from Africa to Lampedusa Island in Sicily.

The comparison to the Moor invasion of long ago reveals the a-historicity of the 'living' folk tradition, and shows the connection between the forming of a local culture based on historical events and the translation of culture in objects.

During the design, seemingly distant worlds—such as the traditional artifacts and illegal immigration—began to blur together, revealing unusual correlations: News report, historical and contemporary data, iconic images, different materials and techniques, are mixed up creating unexpected narrative decorations.

The traditional wine bottle has become the support where to speak about the use of clandestine immigrants for fruit’s harvest, and the majolica flask is transformed in a personal object that tells details about a trip between Nigeria and Lampedusa.

All the faces depicted in the ”Teste di moro” vases are characters of an unknown story.Instead, all our new designs are differently portraiting an existing person. In this way we substituted the fiction with an element of reality in order to stimulate questions and conflicts in the user.

THE VIDEO

Any folk tradition can be invented or reinvented: even our new objects can become part of a new tradition, operating in some specific contexts.

As The anthropologist Fabio Dei mentions “…one important element in all folk traditions is the involvement of the community, in this way the language of the new tradition is shared and so comprehended.”

In the video, three elements of Caltagirone’s folk group are performing the traditional song “Arabs in Palermo” that refers to the African invasion in the 10th century.Normally a vase is used as a wind instrument during performances of the group.

Our flask is now becoming part of the choreography.

The video is a documentation of the first appropriation of one of our new “ORIGINALS” by the context.

CREDITS
We would like to thanks:

For the photos Luisa Zanzani;

for the help in the development Ulrike Rehm;

for the ribbons: Van Engelen & Evers B.V.