The Artisans

Renowned as the creative force behind some of the world’s most successful brands, Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani is the man behind some of the most iconic corporate images and ad campaigns to raise awareness for social issues. Moving between Paris, London, Milan, and New York, he collaborates with international newspapers and magazines such as Elle, Vogue, Esquire, Stern, Liberation, and many others, and has exhibited his work in modern and contemporary art museums all over the world. His self-portrait is on display in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Marcello Vigoni is a Milan-born multi-awarded photographer, graphic designer, and founder of TLS, a 360° communication agency. His expressive language is a black-and-white analog film, exploring the double exposure method since 2016 as well as experimenting with other techniques. Interested in ethical and environmental issues, in 2019 he proposed his first investigative project on the delicate relationship between man and nature titled "Landscapes from the Unconscious”. He followed up with a project on Alpe Devero (Alps) in 2020 and the Multiverse series in 2022.

With feet grounded in the Po Valley and heart beating in the Far East, art director and photographer Alessandro Zanoni has a passion for urban landscape and architecture. His photo essays - shot in South Korea, Japan, and the ghost districts of Inner Mongolia, Wuhan, and Shanghai - investigate the relationship between cities and humans. He has won several international photography prizes, such as Sony World Photography Awards and Lens Culture, to name a few. His pieces have been published in Domus, Vice, Photography of China, Il Fotografo, and Style Magazine, among others.

“I got into pottery for its most peculiar quality: giving shape, solidity, and resistance to fleeting images, fantasies, impalpable corners of one's inner world.” Cecilia Ariaudo is a contemporary ceramist based in Rome, Italy who merges a century-old traditional craft with the timeless value of the senses, drawing inspiration from experience and the surrounding world. Her works are one-of-a-kind, exclusive pieces of interior design.

Born in Poggibonsi near Siena, Tuscany, artist Cecilia Chiavistelli was introduced to arts by Senese master Otello Chiti and painter and engraver Leopoldo Ferruzzi. Her first exhibition in her hometown in 1977 sowed the seeds for a satisfying professional path that, from 1993 on, took her to Roncegno, Italy, Freiberg, Germany, Lagos, Algarve, Portugal, and the Czech Republic for symposiums and exhibitions. A freelance journalist since 2007, Chavistelli is currently dedicated to her own graphic design studio and to attending stages and training courses.

Marila Zanella’s creations cannot be classified as furnishing, sculptures, or installations; they are a manifestation of pure emotion. Inspired by the perfection of nature, each piece is minutely handcrafted through a process that begins with painstaking research and ends with minute sartorial detailing. The energy from an idea or an experience is transformed into designs exuding originality and poetry. Sometimes reinventing pieces from old armchairs and sofas, the approach always stays a step into the future.

Blending contemporary inspiration and traditional craftsmanship, Incalmi is a Venetian-based company with historic roots in the art of glassmaking. Since 2015, the company has dedicated itself to innovation, research, and product development, collaborating with renowned designers and architects in the world of high-end furniture. Artisans meticulously study the objects, from the materials to their intended function, and subsequently reinterpret them in a modern key.

Based in Ossola, Piedmont, Pietre Trovanti distills the magic of stone offcuts sourced from design and applied arts projects by transforming them into objets d’art. Embracing a design vision inspired by nature, where every beginning stems from an end, its collections feature pieces conceived by designers and crafted by skilled artists and local artisans. The finished products are entirely unrepeatable, from their shape and weight to the gradients and mineral kind. Pietre Trovanti’s pieces are like snowflakes: though descending from the same cloud, they are individually unique.

Founded by Jwana Hamdan, a young Italian entrepreneur of Lebanese origins, the homonymous brand proposes itself as the first outdoor furniture brand where Italian design know-how meets a cosmopolitan cultural heritage of Middle Eastern inspiration. JH looks at the tradition, Italian and Middle Eastern, to reinterpret it with a contemporary taste, and conceives design as an encounter between attention to detail, innovation and the typical Made in Italy high quality, but also as an enhancement and transmission of values linked to a shared cultural and social heritage.

Transforming his passion into a career, Claudio Orlandi began exhibiting his photography pieces in 2010, taking part in various art fairs and collaborating with major designated magazines. His oeuvres display a distinctive minimalist style, an essential abstraction that is philosophically profound, reflecting the concept of vastness and details.

Embracing the concept of slow tech as a mindful approach to crafting and production, the creative duo Joe Gentile and Fabio Crippa founded RARO MILANO, a brand that seeks to be an immaterial bridge between novel artistic influences and long-standing Italian traditions. Their pencil borrows from the Renaissance as much as it does from the most cutting-edge technologies, a synthesis that infuses every piece with unrivaled exclusivity and value over time. The brand-new Enki Collection of wireless chargers is inspired by the Sumerian deity of water, knowledge, and craftsmanship.

A research project emerging from the partnership between Wall&decò and AtemporaryStudio, CARTEdition explores the bond between contemporary art and wall coverings. Their original artwork is printed or pressed on top-quality wallpapers, turning them into authentic vertical stories that strike a chord while infusing a distinctive charm into an interior. Quality, technique, and style are the leading principles behind every design, leading to collections of exceptional sartorial flair that stand out on the international market.

Based in Milan and Civitanova Marche, Aintdsgn is a refined contemporary design firm that focuses on merging form and matter in clean essential shapes, handcrafted of first-rate natural raw materials. Traveling throughout the country in search of new inspirations, Aintdsgn creates singular pieces highlighting the dialogue between the ideation and manufacturing phases, between designer and craftsman.

Doodesign is an interior design studio in Bologna specialised in finishes like curtains, sofas, wallpapers, lighting, flooring, and more. The three founders leverage research and innovation to propose striking decors and furnishings that put the customer at the center, using historic brands, icons, new trends, and up-and-coming designers to build their vision. Their collaboration with artist Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi resulted in the Stele Outdoor Collection, a line of bespoke pieces with distinctive phyto-inspired/traditional traits that effortlessly bridge past and present.

Coloriage is a place for sharing, teaching, and learning timeless crafting techniques, offering free seminars and courses for migrants and the unemployed who enjoy being creative. Artisans, designers, and masters from all backgrounds share their knowledge and stories in a small workshop with a big objective: a sartorial studio that uses recycled and recyclable materials to create unique pieces of multicultural inspiration, showcasing splendid contemporary shapes and colors.

An exceptional contemporary interpreter of the century-old art of ironworking, Sebastian Andrè trained at Les Compagnon du Tour de France, a French organization of craftsmen and artisans dating back to the Middle Ages. Upon his return to Italy, he embarked on the Sarteba project creating singular designs of contemporary allure and timeless value. He collaborates with renowned artists, architects, designers, and craftsmen to furnish private and contract indoor and outdoor settings with a distinctive style and sophistication.

Ghiró Studio is an Italian company specializing in luxury interior furniture presenting both modern and international designs. Every creation is studied in detail with the utmost care, and every step is rigorously carried out by hand, to create something wonderful, refined, and extremely contemporary. The noble materials used, such as gold and refined wood, enhance the products. Today Ghiró studio boasts collaborations with the best interior designers, working for private residences, luxury hotels, and some of the most renowned galleries around the world.

Ma.Vi Ceramica's collections pursue innovation just as much as they draw from 300-year-old notebooks laced with artisan secrets. Situated in the coastal town of Vietri sul Mare with a pottery tradition from the 15th century, the atelier is guided by historic pottery techniques from around the world, namely Byzantine, Latin, and Middle Eastern cultures. Singular majolica motifs come to life using various manual techniques such as “pennellato”, sponging, and silkscreen, utilizing brushes, sea sponges, and silk, respectively, to reveal a captivating aesthetic.

A sublime combination of realist techniques and inspirations with surrealist influences and creativity, Marco Grassi is an Italian artist based in Friuli Venezia Giulia. He encourages a silent dialogue between the subject and the audience through distinctive portraits displaying passionate and minute attention to detail. Merging decorative accents and hyper-realistic hues, he recently developed an interest in wood, enhancing the nonconformity of his body of work. His many solo and group exhibitions have been hosted in Berlin, Zurich, Amsterdam, Kiev, and Italy.

Born in Rome in 1967, Oliviero Pagliaroli started his professional path as a designer and architect after attending a Fine Arts High School followed by an Architecture degree at the Roma Tre University. While partnering with architectural firms and participating in national and international contests, he progressively turned to painting and fully embracing Informalism, with its abstract and gestural tendencies. In 2000, he founded his atelier BLACK OFFICE and began collaborating with artist Aleandro Nardinocchi, co-founder of the WHITECUBE3 exhibition area in Rome.