STORIE

Storie: note sulla collezione | Storie: notes on the collection

The Storie ceramics collection

In line with a design method that investigates space-time relationships and

identifies the signs of history in the hidden recesses of the familiar places where

daily life is lived, for CEDIT Giorgia Zanellato and Daniele Bortotto present the Storie

collection, comprising six different sets of wall coverings, inscribed by the young

designers with the theme of the relentless passage of time. The duo explored Italy’s

architectural landscape - its interiors and its nostalgic contrasts - of stately homes,

villas and aristocratic palaces, farmhouses and old factories, and the environmental

surroundings of a distinctively Italian manufacturing past, to source their repertoire

of images and their inspiration for conveying a distinctively Italian mood. Looking at

the changes brought about by sometimes unfriendly time, the designers undertake a

journey of exploration and interpretation of the gradients of colour, shade, texture and

consistency of large portions of plastered wall. “Technological innovation enables us

to reproduce on large-sized ceramic materials all the effects of wear and stratification

that normally only time is able to create”.

Zanellato and Bortotto have selected five different environments, located in

precise contexts and areas, and identified a specific effect caused by the ageing

process in each of them - the faded fresco on the wall of a villa, the damp found

on plain or decorative plasterwork or the form of rust stains on walls. To apply an

emotional synecdoche, the wall becomes a metaphor for experience, the “skin” which

accumulates and reveals the passing of the years, the surface on which time itself is

deposited. The walls of a room are the surfaces on which the moods, moments and

stories it has contained are deposited, transforming their appearance and leaving

visual records of the unique events of which they are the silent custodians.

The unique nature of these moments and events is translated into ceramics, for

centuries an art form produced only by craftsmen, a material which can be moulded

to create original, unrepeatable panels even in large sizes. The slabs, designed

for covering indoor and in some cases outdoor walls, contain stunning pigments

and colour variations, the memory of an illustrious past and custodians of antique,

vanishing traditions and knowledge.

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