Homo Faber NextGen - Homo Faber Fellowship - TRAINEE TO PROFESSIONAL 2022 - ANNOUNCEMENT
The Trainee to Professional programme aims to give young craftspeople their first paid opportunity in a professional environment
Artisan from atelier 40 Plumas at work ©Daniel Orquin
· A brand new educational initiative supporting the exchange of knowledge between master artisans and young craftspeople
· Offering young people their first paid opportunity in an established artisan workshop
· Launching in January 2022 in France and Spain, with plans to expand internationally
The Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship is delighted to announce a new educational programme that supports young craftspeople to take their first steps in the professional world.
The Trainee to Professional programme draws its inspiration from the experience and success of the initiative Una Scuola, un Lavoro. Percorsi di Eccellenza (A School, a Job. Training to Excellence), founded 10 years ago in Italy by Milano-based Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte. Launching in January 2022, it will fund selected young people on a six-month paid placement in the workshop of a master artisan in their local area, including one month’s theoretical study at a participating regional institution. Participants may be recent graduates from applied arts schools in Europe, or young people who wish to enter artisanal professions.
The Michelangelo Foundation believes that hands-on exchange between experienced artisans and young aspiring craftspeople is key to safeguarding endangered crafts at risk of disappearing as master artisans retire. As such, it is committed to investing in and developing educational initiatives that support the promotion of crafts expertise and the exchange of knowledge between masters and students. The Trainee to Professional programme aligns squarely with these aims: it facilitates the first steps of young people in the professional world of crafts, hopefully leading to a long-term career in their chosen profession, and gives master artisans the chance to train a young person in their craft and increase their business capacity, without having to bear the costs themselves.
The programme’s pilot year kicks off in January 2022 in Spain and France in collaboration with local organisations who are part of the Michelangelo Foundation’s network of likeminded institutions – Contemporánea de Artes y Oficios in Spain and The Craft Project in France – and with financial support from the Costa Crociere Foundation. Seven selected trainees – one in France and six in Spain – will be placed in professional workshops in Marseille, Barcelona, Ibiza, Mallorca, Malaga and Valencia. The programme will offer them a monthly salary, as well as the opportunity to undertake a month-long ‘mini-master’ to learn the theory behind the practice; in Spain this is taught by La Tecnocreativa, while in France it will be taught in the workshop itself. In addition, 25 trainees will join ateliers all over Italy under the guidance of Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte for the 10th edition of Una Scuola, un Lavoro. Percorsi di Eccellenza.
The first year’s participating artisan workshops in Spain and France are: glassmaking workshop 40 Plumas in Barcelona; ceramicist Arturo Mora in Valencia; cabinetmaker Jordi Ribas Ros in Mallorca; restorer Nicolau Baucells in Ibiza; both Jeweller Antonio Seijo and conservation and restoration workshop Santa Conserva in Málaga as well as boat building workshop Chantier Naval Borg in Marseille. Each master or workshop has personally selected the student they wish to train.
Following the 2022 pilot year, the Michelangelo Foundation aims to develop and facilitate the Trainee to Professional programme in the long term on a wider European and global level by working with local educational institutions and social organisations. In this way, the scheme will support and encourage talented young people all over the world to fulfil their potential and integrate into the local job market, and help master artisans pass on their precious savoir-faire to a new generation, ultimately perpetuating their long-held craft traditions and safeguarding them for the future.
The Trainee to Professional programme joins the Michelangelo Foundation’s growing suite of educational initiatives including the Young Ambassadors and Summer School programmes.
Notes for editors
michelangelofoundation.org
@homofaber
The Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship is a non-profit institution based in Geneva which champions contemporary craftspeople worldwide with the aim of promoting a more human, inclusive and sustainable future. The foundation seeks to highlight the connections between craft and the wider arts and the design world. Its mission is to both celebrate and preserve craftsmanship and its diversity of makers, materials and techniques, by increasing craft’s everyday recognition and its viability as a professional path for the next generations. From engaging educational programmes such as the summer schools to its signature digital project the Homo Faber Guide and international exhibition the Homo Faber Event, the foundation is fostering a cultural movement centred on master artisans and rising stars.
Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte is a private, non-profit institution founded in 1995. Based in Milan, it promotes cultural, academic and educational initiatives for the protection and diffusion of Italian artistic crafts. The Fondazione Cologni’s mission is to inspire a “new Renaissance” of the artistic crafts and rescue them from the threat of extinction. Many of its initiatives focus on young people and training future generations of artisans. fondazionecologni.it
Asociación Contemporanea de Artes y Oficios (ACAO) is an association that promotes both traditional and contemporary Spanish crafts. They seek to protect Spanish craftsmanship, and use it to foster the development of culture, history and art and boost its economic benefits on the environment and tourism industry. Their main targets are to ensure an environment in which Spanish craftspeople can thrive and to aid them in having further commercial reach in Spain and internationally. The ACAO collaborates with similar institutions to ideate best practices; they assist with the development of commercial platforms for craftspeople; they organise seminars, forums and talks. Beyond this, they use media for widespread visibility for arts and crafts; they launch programmes that promote crafts and engage in research projects. Their collective expertise enables them to provide consulting services to artisans and ateliers. forodeartesyoficios.com
The Craft Project is a French non-profit association born out of the podcast which goes by the same name, which has been promoting French craftspeople and craftsmanship since 2018. The association has several aims: firstly, to create a community of artisans who collectively think of innovative strategies to build the futures of their crafts. Secondly, to raise awareness of craftsmanship among the general public by introducing them to materials and to beauty. Lastly, to encourage vocations by shedding light on exemplary destinies and adventures in the arts and crafts. thecraftproject.fr
La Tecnocreativa is a fashion and design school based in Madrid that focuses on entrepreneurship, management and sustainable development. It seeks to preserve the traditional crafts linked to the creative industries and marry them with new technologies. The school revolutionises training with a model that combines online learning, thanks to televisual technology, with in-presence seminars for certain courses. A month-long course tailored to the Trainee to Professional programme was created with partner Assocíacion Contemporánea Artes y oficios for the participating students. latecnocreativa.com
Costa Crociere Foundation was created with the aim of disseminating and developing the values of the Costa Group through the management and financing of environmental and social projects with a common interest. A commitment that manifests in supporting and developing projects to assist communities they encounter on the Costa ships’ journeys, and which focus on environmental protection and the eradication of social inequity at a global level investing. They invest 100% of the donations they receive into projects to transform the daily work they do into a promise of happiness. costacrocierefoundation.com
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