Looking forward to CERSAIE 2018

International visitors from all over the world will be coming to Bologna September 24 through 28, 2018 for the 36th Cersaie International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings. In the renewed trade fair centre, where two new pavilions will be inaugurated for the event, prominent architects from all over the world and a packed calendar of related events in the trade fair centre and all over the city form the key attractions at this year’s edition of the fair. “Scacco bagno” is the ironic poster image for the fair created by White Stuff, a team of students from Accademia di Brera: Naima Annoni, Enrica Caiello, Riccardo Piovesan and Maria Cristina Ziviani, winners of the eighth Beautiful Ideas Contest for university students for the creation of the Cersaie 2018 poster image.

The “Scacco bagno” image recalls another chessboard that has gone down in the city’s history: the one created out of clods of earth printed on ceramic tiles that covered Piazza Santo Stefano in Bologna in 1972 for the artistic event “&Pollution, per una nuova ’estetica dell’inquinamento”, organised by Iris Ceramica.

1972 – 2018: 46 years down the road, Iris Ceramica Group will be back in Piazza Santo Stefano to present a new project, “POLLUTION 2018 - RefleAction”, in partnership with SOS School of Sustainability and architect Mario Cucinella’s Studio MC A. A forest has grown out of those famous clods of earth, forming the evocative new Pollution installation that will be opening on Sunday, September 23 and continuing until September 28. Designed by Mario Cucinella and SOS – School of Sustainability, the installation represents nature taking back urban space, as a forest grows in place of the city square. In this cooperative project combining art, architecture and landscape in an extraordinary co-design process aimed at reconciling man and nature”, Pollution will host three new writing, movement and listening performances addressing the theme of crossing, inspired by the forest and created under the artistic direction of Davide Rondoni. The Pollution forest will be a place to walk through, an initiation rite for rebuilding the relationship between people and the city.

Cersaie 2018 will inaugurate two new exhibition pavilions, 29 and 30, representing the first step in the redevelopment of Bologna’s entire trade fair district, due to be completed in 2024. The new pavilion 30 will also host a theme exhibition curated by architect Angelo dall’Aglio with Davide Vercelli for Cersaie. The Sound of Design is inspired by music, as the title of the 2018 suggests, and specifically by a number of songs from the '70s and early '80s that have become true pop icons. The exhibition will be divided into a number of sets in a 700 square metre area emphasising the features of the ceramic materials and bathroom furnishings on show.

Meetings with world-renowned architects will include a lectio magistralis by Richard Rogers, winner of the 2007 Pritzker Prize, with an introduction by Francesco Dal Co on September 25. On September 26 and 27 the tenth edition of the cultural programme “building, dwelling, thinking”, featuring architects Camilo Rebelo and Carla Juaçaba, will discuss the theme of design with architects Mario Botta and Guido Canali. Lastly, Braclay&Crousse and Vincenzo Latina, with moderator Fulvio Irace, will present a conference on “the architecture of tolerance”, which will, like all the other events, be held at the Architecure Gallery.

(Agnese Bifulco)

pollution.irisceramicagroup.com
www.cersaie.it

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