“POLDINA ART LAB”: an art initiative by Zafferano in collaboration with Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice

Zafferano partners with two prestigious Venetian art institutes and local young emerging artists, to transforms the cordless lamp Poldina by Zafferano into twenty-two works of art.

The uniqueness of the city of Venice, the potential of new generations and the value of the creative gesture: these are the three themes around which the initiative is developed, with the aim to add artistic value to Poldina, Zafferano’s cordless lamp with an archetypal silhouette.

The Poldina Art Lab initiative is a brainchild of entrepreneur Federico de Majo – founder, designer, and CEO at Zafferano - to involve up-and-coming Venetian artists in the customization of Poldina, and transform it into as many unique art pieces, according to each individual style. The Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa - a prestigious Venetian institution historically committed to the enhancement of the work of beginning artists - and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, one of Italy's oldest academies, partnered with Federico de Majo in the search for young creatives to engage in this "call for artists”.

Download the initative's brochure: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/03z6y9g4thgamnc/AADbbvr9DqxMqXOfm3OxiqFPa?dl=0

Federico de Majo explains: “The collaboration with Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa and Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia is of great value to me, since I have a special bond with the lagoon city: I was born here and grew up breathing passion and creativity in the family glassworks in Murano. It was indeed in the field of artistic creation that I found my vocation as a designer, a profession that evolved into that of an entrepreneur in the design sector. My love for the artistic and cosmopolitan spirit of my city has guided my professional path; therefore, I thought of offering the community of artists who study and work in Venice an additional opportunity to express their creativity.”

It is not uncommon for companies to choose the contribution of artists and designers to turn a design object into a collector's item: but in this occasion, the choice is supported by the desire to create a collaboration opportunity that is consistent with the firm’s principles. Federico de Majo adds: “When I founded the Zafferano company, I had three simple but important principles in mind: experience, understood as the ability to internalize and value one’s origins and continuity with the past; concreteness, that is solidity, planning, and clarity; and finally, curiosity, which is the bold propensity to research, and an inexhaustible creative force. I thought that these concepts, akin to those of a young creative mind, could have been an interesting opportunity to seize. I therefore thank the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation and the Venice Academy of Fine Arts for connecting me with the artists who work with them."

Prof. Bruno Bernardi, President at Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, comments: “Throughout the ages, the lamp has always been culturally charged with strong symbolic meanings: emblem of the ancestral struggle between light and darkness; of the liberty from the oppression of ignorance; of the promise of a new world, as the philosophers of the Enlightenment era claimed. But the lamp also provides the light of seduction and complicity, of the game that enlivens mutual limits, generates penumbra, and spawns the interpretive power of ambiguity: a more reflective, and potentially richer approach to knowledge. Zafferano asked a group of young artists to explore the innumerable suggestions of a product with a clear, almost archetypal design. A challenging encounter between artistic creativity and entrepreneurial innovation, two worlds with vast common territories.”

The artists, some of whom have international backgrounds, interpreted the proposed theme using a wide variety of techniques and producing very different works, further demonstrating the versatility of the product. These works will be presented in a special installation in the Zafferano booth at the Euroluce fair, which will take place during the Salone del Mobile in Milan, April 18-23 (hall 13, booth 101). The three customizations that best meet artistic criteria will be awarded a cash prize; one of the projects may be chosen to be produced in a limited edition.

Beyond its cultural value, this initiative reflects Zafferano's intention to confirm Poldina, probably the world's best-selling cordless lamp, as a design icon to be increasingly recognized as "the original."

To involve a wider audience in the Poldina Art Lab project, Zafferano has created a document, which lets everyone personalize their Poldina to make it unique and inimitable. Everything is allowed, the only rules are: - give free rein to creativity; - post the artwork on Instagram by tagging the profile @zafferanoitaliaofficial, #poldinaartlab, #mypoldina

Notes

Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa - The Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation is an Institution of the City of Venice that has been supporting contemporary art and the training of young artists for more than 120 years by putting up 15 equipped and free studios in Venice each year, organizing

an end-of-stay exhibition, a Young Artists Collective, and numerous other cultural initiatives. Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia - The Venice Academy of Fine Arts is a state art academy belonging to the university sector of higher education in art and music. Among the specialized courses in the two-year specialized offerings, the DASL School of Graphics - address in Editions and Illustration for the Book and Art Graphics, led by Prof. Giovanni Turria, preserves the ancient tradition of Venetian art graphics and typography.

More details about artists' work are available here: https://www.zafferanoitalia.com/en/poldina-art-lab/