Homo Faber 2024 Opens in Venice – Elite Traveler
Sure, Venice may be physically sinking, yet the Floating City continues to remain on top as the world’s cultural capital. Just as the Venice Film Festival wraps up, Homo Faber 2024 has opened at Fondazione Giorgio Cini to ensure the Italian city’s talent, artistry and craftsmanship has certainly not dried up.
In its third edition, the groundbreaking design festival has taken on the theme of “Homo Faber 2024: The Journey of Life”, showcasing more than 400 artisans from 70 countries on the Italian archipelago until September 30, 2024.
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Organized by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship and its partners, the foundation’s vice-president Hanneli Rupert brought in architect Nicolò Rosmarini and the constantly busy auteur Luca Guadagnino – the film director whose first hotel opened in the Italian capital only last month – to serve as the fair’s art directors.
“My job has always been to find a way to tell a story within the coordinates that I’m given,” Guadagnino said upon the exhibition’s opening. “This amazing and very streamlined and universal concept of the ‘Journey of Life’ really led us to understand how to envelop the audience through the amazing architecture of the Fondazione Cini so that the craft on display was not going to be overwhelmed but at the same time, the place itself was given a lot of relevance.”
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Across 10 themed exhibitions, 800 works of craft have been grouped to explore how craftsmanship underpins our daily lives. Visitors are taken on a colorful, explosive journey through the indoor and outdoor spaces of the transformed Fondazione Giorgio Cini – which has been elegantly dressed up with pleated fabric walls in a nod to the Venetian-born designer (and Guadagnino’s hero) Carlo Scarpa.
Along the way, visitors will encounter, among other things, a pair of almost 40-ft-high papier mâché cypress trees, a dream-like reimagining of the Cini’s former swimming pool, and a forest of chandeliers descending from the ceiling of the Sala degli Arazzi.
“We wanted to create incredible moments through large-scale installations but also a harmonious journey through all the rooms,” explained Rosmarini. “We went into detail with every single element in the rooms, which was an amazing collaboration with the greatest artisans and experts to create elements that show incredible values and craftsmanship.”
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A truly immersive experience, in addition to the ten themed exhibition spaces, Homo Faber 2024 also offers a daily program of live demonstrations, participatory workshops and gourmet experiences. Visitors can meet the independent craftspeople and artisans behind the works and see firsthand the techniques that go into creating the works on display; from workshops in pocket globe making and Japanese bookbinding, guided by master artisans and presented by Mazda, to collaborations with Maison Lesage on the creation of Murmuration, an imposing embroidery depicting a huge flock of starlings that is on display.
Homo Faber 2024: The Journey of Life runs from 1 – 30 September 2024 at Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini homofaber.com
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