News
Ceramic Futures: from poetry to science fiction: start up and online journey
reading time: 4 minutes
It started up in Milan on 6 June and has travelled and evolved on the web during June and July, in preparation for the Cersaie exhibition in September. It is Ceramic Futures: from poetry to science fiction, the first social network project dedicated entirely to ceramic coverings.
The project is sponsored by the world’s biggest international ceramics exhibition, Cersaie, the show held by the Italian ceramics industry in Bologna every year. It is also sponsored by the Confindustria Ceramica industrialists’ association and is organised by Edi.Cer. Spa together with IdLab.
Start up: Milan. The project start-up took place in Milan on 6 June, and involved students from four of Europe’s top design schools (IED Rome, Abadir Catania, Glasgow School of Art and Politecnico Milan) led by a group of lecturers/tutors who a few days before had made a fact-finding visit to Marazzi, as well as other locations, to acquire more first-hand knowledge of the ceramic tile world. The students were asked to think about possible new directions that the ceramic tile world could potentially pursue in the near future, on the basis of four themes: Human Body, New Nature, Work and Food.
Online journey. After a brief set-up period headed by Elio Caccavale (designer and lecturer in Product Design at Glasgow School of Art) and Stefano Mirti (designer and partner in IdLab), the four groups of young designers were enabled to work interactively and collaboratively during June and July, using the means of communication typical of the social media. The entire project evolved on a dedicated web platform (ceramicfutures.com), constantly updated by means of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. The website’s Diary section contained the students’ work in progress, to allow ideas and opinions to be shared, with the aim of creating a database with the evolution of the individual designs. Thanks to the social media, even greater interaction was possible: the entire design process was open to and visible from the outside and anyone interested was able to log on, observe, comment, ask questions and interact, creating a viral mechanism that led to the publication of more than 700 posts.
The social media interaction and online phase came to an end last Friday, and the assessment of the designs (which can all be consulted at www.ceramicfutures.com/diary) now begins. During August, the designs will be placed in order of merit in relation to 4 specific parameters (Most Sociable, Most Appreciated, Most Charismatic and Most Productive) and the results will be published just before Cersaie. Here at Marazzi Your Space, we can’t wait to get the final standings, so we can tell you about the winning designs!