The first edition of the Officine Ceramiche Award 2022 designer competition was a great success: 75 registered participants who duly sent in their works within the deadlines set by the call for entries.

75  75 registered participants who duly sent in their works within the deadlines set by the call for entries.

18 There were 18 countries of origin, many from outside the continent such as Brazil, Iran, the United States and South Korea to name but a few.

Naturally, the lion's share was taken by our country with no less than 47 participants from 8 different regions. And first among them was our Campania region with all four provinces represented.

The meetings of the commission, which I chaired with great pleasure and satisfaction, and which I also remember was composed of Claudio Gambardella, Matteo Zauli, Enrico De Nicola and Marco Alfano, were very full.

I will briefly recall what was the guiding thread that animated the competition:

Work changes, workplaces change: objects, equipment, tools. The competition of Officine Ceramiche Award 2022 wanted to present, along with the results of long-term trends, the solutions suggested by more recent circumstances and the new balances imposed by the pandemic season. Even with the emergency over, the place and timing of work has now changed. The design competition connected with the event MATRES 2022 invited designers and artists to reflect on new scenarios, with a focus on product sustainability and the use of raw materials green. Officine Ceramiche Award 2022  sought first and foremost to promote the crossing of the more or less clear-cut boundary between contemporary art, collectible design and applied arts; therefore, it invited with the challenger artists and designers to nominate sculptures, handmade everyday objects, even partially produced in ceramics - (Among the features was in fact allowed the use of other materials in a non-prevalent way) - created in the last two years. The works had to have these characteristics: be a unique or limited edition product, owned by the nominating artist and not a winner of any other award. In addition, for strictly exhibition reasons of the hall, the application was limited to one piece per work, while those smaller than 250x250x200 mm were always favored for the same reasons. Any larger works were still accepted and placed differently by the commission. On the basis of the works received, subsequently surveyed in the official list, stamped by the commission and carefully scrutinized after several meetings scheduled by it in the exhibition venue of the Complex of S.Giovanni in Cava de' Tirreni the final ranking was elaborated based on arithmetic logic and deriving from a subsequent evaluative grid composed of the six points extracted from the published announcement and then assigning to each one a score from 1 to 10 with the following values: a) sustainability; b) collector's item; c) smart post covid solution; d)multimateriality; e) dimensions; f) creativity/originality. On the whole, the works achieved an adequate level of quality both in the specific use of ceramic material and in the choice of techniques for their realization. Very few, however, in the unanimous opinion of the committee, hit the targets indicated in the category design. In conclusion, the design object that in the opinion of the committee I chaired centered almost all the elements indicated by the call for proposals, achieving an excellent final score and clearly standing out from the other competitors is that of PATRIZIO BORTOLONI AND DALILA INNOCENTI. In second place is placed GABRIELE RESMINI which stands out especially for its creativity and use of forms. In third place comes LOREDANA AVAGLIANO for its artistic growth, which together with the minimal lines of the submitted object fully meets the requirements indicated in the call for entries, perhaps sinning only in the failure to make contemporary use of other materials that would surely have enriched it. Finally, the committee wanted to award an additional recognition out of the competition: the reporting award a ELISA D'ARIENZO for its originality in the use of the ceramic form declined on a par with a story.