An enchanting display of floral creativity and fine glass craftsmanship

Renowned flower designers team up with Venetian glassmaker Venini to create a collection of exquisite vases and spectacular flower bouquets at Homo Faber Event 2022

Master artisan from Venini at work©Ivano Mercanzin

• Glassmakers from leading Venetian glass manufacturer Venini collaborate with international flower designers on a collection of vases 

• The exhibition evokes a fairy tale garden, conceived by the French scenographer and interior designer Sylvain Roca 

• To complement the vases they have helped to create, flower designers including Philippa Craddock, Emily Avenson, Gregor Lersch and Nicolai Bergmann design bespoke bouquets  

In April at Homo Faber Event 2022 visitors will be able to visit Blossoming Beauty, a project imagined by the Michelangelo Foundation with Venini and the French scenographer and interior designer Sylvain Roca. An enchanted garden comes to life thanks to a collection of original vases made especially for the installation by the Murano glassworks, using ancient glassmaking techniques.

Venini has taken part in Homo Faber Event since its first edition. The international event brings to Venice the best of European craftsmanship with the aim of drawing attention to excellence within the arts and crafts professions, contemporary and traditional, and to their links with the world of design. Venini fits in perfectly with this context: in nearly 100 years of history, the glass factory has invited key creative talents to test their skills within the centuries-old art of glassmaking.

Venini’s creations reflect the ability of its master craftspeople to give form to the creative vision of designers and great artists. Each work is the result of a deep collaboration and constant striving to capture the moment in which the medium crystallises forever. The glass acquires shapes and volumes, colours and transparencies in the extraordinary beauty of the artistic gesture.

To collaborate on Blossoming Beauty, the Michelangelo Foundation and Venini have enlisted ten highly talented flower designers, entrusting them with the design of both the vases themselves and special bouquets to enhance the beauty of these delicate glass vessels. 

Exploring the relationship between a prestigious artisanal glass manufacturer and renowned flower designers, the beautifully handcrafted vases speak of the human imagination and skills that have created them, underlining the coming together of fine craftsmanship and creativity. 

Sylvain Roca, who has designed exhibitions for leading galleries and museums all over the world, conceived this exhibition – located in the Sala Bianca, or White Hall – as a garden in full bloom. The idea of “blossoming”, he suggests, has in itself the very concept of creativity and savoir-faire, echoing the artisan’s process across time and space. The glassblower deftly and with great skill works hot material as it becomes something luminous and new. The flower artist also seeks shape and form in artful arrangements whose ephemeral nature makes them all the more beautiful. 

 A mysterious and poetic soundtrack celebrates the relationship between artisans and the natural world, conceived for the exhibition room by French composer Christian Holl, who is renowned for his collaborations with UNESCO. Holl’s audio pays homage to the transformative journey taken by grains of sand from the natural world into the furnaces of Venini, where they are fused into splendid glass forms and manipulated by the hands of master artisans. The melody also honours the flowers that are transformed into bouquets by the creative eye and touch of a floral artist. 

An immersive digital video layer, synchronised with the soundtrack, is disseminated at the garden’s four corners and mirrored around. Conceived by film maker Olivier Brunet, it celebrates the four elements, their materials and their transformation, giving birth to the creations in a kaleidoscopic effect that perfectly echoes the blossom. 

The garden entrance is highlighted by an exclusive and exquisite title emblem created by worldrenowned graphic artists Antoine+Manuel. 

 “Homo Faber is a project we really believe in, because it totally represents us: the Venini glassworks has been a pioneer in bringing together the excellence of the craft professions and the designer’s creativity. But that is not all: the Venice lagoon, where the event is planned, is intrinsically bound up with the history of the glass factory, established in Murano in 1921. Homo Faber Event thus represents a very important opportunity for putting our manufacturing heritage into the international limelight.” – Silvia Damiani, Vice President of the Damiani group, which acquired Venini in 2016.

“Working with Venini will be very exciting because the pieces that come out of the furnace are not just simple vases. Rather, they embody an extraordinary creative experience: each piece is the result of a precise, silent and skilful gesture that materialises an intangible idea, the artistic one. With the Blossoming Beauty project, I will put the magic of this beautiful thing onstage.” – Sylvain Roca.

The participating floral artisans are: 

− Emily Avenson, US/Belgium

− Nicolai Bergmann, Denmark/Japan 

− Philippa Craddock, UK 

− Frédéric Dupré, France 

− Satoshi Kawamoto, Japan/Italy 

− Gregor Lersch, Germany 

− Mantas Petruškevičius, Lithuania 

− Daniel Santamaria, Spain 

− Nikki Tibbles, UK 

− White Pepper, Italy 

Blossoming Beauty is set in the White Hall at Fondazione Giorgio Cini. It is one of 15 exhibitions that comprise Homo Faber Event 2022, organised by the Michelangelo Foundation.