The Venice Glass Week 2023

BOTTLING TRUST

Inspired by The Bottle Of Trust – The Venice Glass Week 2023
9th-17thSeptember 2023

VERNISSAGE: 9th September 2023, h. 17.00
Franco Schiavon Gallery, Fondamenta dei Vetrai 26, 30141, Murano
To book your participation to the event click ➝ here.

The Bottle of Trust is an object designed to be given away by the Municipality of Umeå, in the North of Sweden. Studies have revealed that Umeå stands out as a remarkable exemplar of trust, both in terms of its residents’ profound mutual reliance and their unwavering confidence in institutions. This city has emerged as a global epitome of trustworthiness, fostering an environment where the connection among citizens is exceptional, and faith in various establishments remains steadfast.

The Bottle of Trust has been designed by Jeroen Peeters, Ambra Trotto and Maria Claudia Coppola at RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden. One piece has been donated to the Swedish Minister of Culture; the other existing piece is on a European tour and will be shown in Eindhoven during the Dutch Design Week and in Murano during the Venice Glass Week 2023: the installation, named “Bottling Trust”, will be open to public at the Franco Schiavon Gallery, 9^th-17^th September 2023.

Trust is a peculiar thing, the more you give it away, the more you receive. Bottling Trust invites the receiver to pass it on, with a secret inside, multiplying trust along the way. In Murano, visitors will be invited to engage in an installation that exemplifies and unpacks the notion of trust. Experiencing trust, daring to trust, being seduced into trusting: could this be the best way to deal with nowadays uncertainties and fragilities? Could this lead to becoming able to respond together, humbly, and collaboratively, to nowadays global challenges? Sharing responsibilities, through beauty and engagement could be the solution?

Would you gift a secret to the Bottle of Trust, anonimously?
Write your secret ➝ here.
Nobody, not even the account who created the form, can see the author of the secret. It is completely anonymous. The secret will be printed, sealed, and placed in the Bottle during the exhibition’s opening*. It will never be removed or unfolded.

“Bottling Trust”: inspired by the concept of “The Bottle of Trust” (designed by Jeroen Peeters, Ambra Trotto, Maria Claudia Coppola at RISE); supported by and in collaboration with the City of Umeå, Sweden, and Franco Schiavon Gallery, Murano; designed by Ambra Trotto; realised by the Murano-based trans-feminist glass collective #VetraieRibelli: Chiara Lee Tajarol, Mariana Oliboni, Julia Malia Cordi, Andrew Dougherty, Ambra Trotto; sound design by Mariana Oliboni; curated by Veronica Vitari.

LIGHT THE TORCH

Light The Torch – The Venice Glass Week 2023
9th-17th September 2023

DEMONSTRATIONS SCHEDULE:

ALDO BOSCOLO: from 09 to 17 September 2023, h. 11.00-13.00

FINISSAGE: 17th September 2023, h. 1700
Fornace Franco Schiavon, Fondamenta dei Vetrai 26, 30141, Murano

To mark its 50th anniversary, the Vetreria Franco Schiavon has decided to open again its furnace and trace its story back to the origins: although nowadays it stands out for the technical variety and the finesse of its creations, it was funded in 1973 as a factory for glass rods specifically designed for lamp-working, and, indeed, it is this ancient technique that it wants to celebrate during this 5th participation to The Venice Glass Week.

Also known as “tecnica a lume”, the work of the lumista (the artisan working the rods with the torch) has developed during the centuries changing according to the inventive skills of the artist: lampworking has always been a solo activity that still today requires an intimate and synergetic closeness between master and matter. Over time traditional instruments have been replaced by metallic torches and gas cylinders, however the soul of this refined technique staid the same. Blown or solid, massive or tiny, mono or polychromatic, the only limit of this manufacturing is the creativity of the artist themselves.

LIGHT THE TORCH wants to honor this art presenting itself as a showcase for a group of artists called to work individually in a unique big collective space: the goal is to recreate the exchange buzz that characterized ancient Muranese studios where the competition between masters has always turned into an incredible artistic growth.

The guests will guide the public in the discovery of some of the many applications lamp-working is used for. The festival will start from the elegance of blown cups by Aldo Boscolo and the designer and life partner Marta Rossetto, acknowledging the uniqueness of Olga Tobakova’s pearls and the contemporaneity of Chiara Tajarol’s art pieces, till getting to the classicism of Nicola Donà’s sculptures, pupil of Lucio Bubacco’s figurative eclecticism. For the Festival closing event, it will be Lucio Bubacco himself with two other pillars of lamp-working, Mauro Bonaventura and Vittorio Costantini, to better honor this art: during the finissage ceremony held at Franco Schiavon Gallery they will judge and prize the best artworks among the ones created amid the glass week by the attending artists.

Masters: Nicola Donà, Aldo Boscolo
Curated by: Veronica Vitari

WOW – WORK ON WHEELS

#VetraieRibelli – The Venice Glass Week 2023
9th-17th September 2023

FINISSAGE: 17th September 2023, h. 17.00
Fornace Franco Schiavon, Fondamenta dei Vetrai 26, 30141, Murano

“Why did I choose glass? Actually, it chose me”: it is with these words that Chiara Tajarol describes the beginning of her 10-year-long glass-working career started in Seattle, passed through Australia and that is now settled in Murano.

In the lagoon she has been tempered not only by the heat of the furnaces but also by the several closed doors she has met in a context that has always been mainly manled. However, Chiara stubbornly made her way, opening up to the collaboration with other artists, both local and international. She also developed the project #VetraieRibellli together with Mariana Oliboni, her business partner in El Cocal Glass Studio. Networking and cooperating with others: these are the ideals that inspire their approach towards glass and for which they are still considered outcasts in the generally conservative panorama of the “Glass Island”.

For them, working with glass means learning how to take care of any detail, thus their furnace embraces both tradition and innovation, making every single piece unique and inimitable. Glass blowing is not just a job, it is a love relationship with this material, therefore they approach this refined whilst demanding technique with great commitment and precision.

“You should believe in what you’re doing, in your passion. It doesn’t matter where you’ll get, what matters is the journey”.

Their aim is to allow anyone, especially women, to approach glass working, combining traditions, new techniques, and femminility. Exactly femminility, because #VetraieRibelli have chosen to reinterpret arcaic designs such as Preistoric Venuses in a collection dedicated to Girl Power. Contrasting the logics of sexualization and objectifications that usually lie behind nude depictions, Chiara and Mariana have realized another series inspired by female curves in a hymn to harmony and sensibility.

In her international artistic journey, she has decided to honor Franco Schiavon Gallery with an exibition of her most represantative artworks realized together with Mariana Oliboni during the festival The Venice Glass Week 2023.

“We are art. We are rebellion. We are strength. We are passion…We are women!”