The following pieces have been designed and produced for the MuranoGlass beyond the barricades, an exhibition organized for The Venice Glass Week 2018 which aims to show the interpretation skills of glass: its innovative power in representing and confronting contemporary themes in a shattering way.

13 Murano glass factories transformed something ugly, heavy, and colourless (new jersey barriers) in a beautiful, light and colourful Murano glass objects.

Among the Socing slogans theorized by Orwell in 1984, the first recited “War is Peace”. Even today war is used to promote peace. The ever more frequent use of expressions such as “exporting democracy”, “humanitarian mission” and “smart bombs” prevents us from recognizing the basic incoherence: when military force is used to promote democracy, the means are in clear contradiction with the noble purpose. GlassPeace is a jersey that speaks about this incoherence: the seven colours of the peace flag immediately evoke a pacifist message, but among the panels that compose it, there is a reproduction of a World War II grenade.

In order to highlight the dichotomy between war and peace, GlassPeace plays with contrasts: between fullness and emptiness, between matter and air, between color and non-color.

Globalwarming is causing the rapid and very dangerous melting of the glaciers, the natural habitat of many animal species destined, at this rate, to extinction. From 1980 the Arctic glaciers have suffered a loss in extension of seventeen times the Italian peninsula area, generating a dangerous sea level rise and endangering the lives of over 150 million people living alongside the coasts. Venice and Murano will not be an exception. (un)Frozen wants to reflect on the impact that human beings have on the Earth, promoting a more aware lifestyle.

The work, consisting of about 250 solid glass bricks, has the appearance of an igloo that is slowly melting, exposing the precious “Soffio” vases to the weather as a metaphor of life and fragility. (un)Frozen also wants to give an example of sustainability: it is built using only one material and dry-mounted, making the all components easily reusable and/ or recyclable.

At the end of the exhibition, the bricks of (un)Forzen may in fact be re-used in other contexts or be re-melted becoming new works of maestro Cenedese.

What is a new-jersey barrier? A barricade, a border.

And what a barrier can separate? Two directions of travel, for example, or two different zones. It can separate one population from another, but also one family.

How many times have we assisted the erection of barriers of doubtful usefulness? Let’s think of those that separate Israel from Gaza and West Bank; the Berlin Wall; or the “big, beautiful wall” that Trump promised between Mexico and the USA. “Cracked” wants to reflect on the concept of division.

The project is realized with Murano glass using the Tiffany technique: a copper binding that combines mirror parts with screen-printed transparent glass representing images of the Arab spring, symbol of the Middle-East socio-cultural rebellion. The jersey has a fracture inside, a mirrored hole that connects the two sides of the division.

Therefore, by observing what is beyond the hole (your enemy?) you can also mirror yourself.

Thanks to this expedient, the viewer sees who is on the other side of the wall next to his reflection and is led to wonder: “Am I sure that who is beyond the barrier is so different from me?”.