CRAFT LAB: From residencies to design and art start-ups Regenerating craftsmanship
On the occasion of the 84th edition of the Fiera del Levante, the CRAFT LAB project debuts with its own exhibition space in the Furniture Pavilion, stand n. 424-425, as a part of the final project activities aimed to give the right visibility to the path and the creative and artistic work carried out during the project and to guarantee the sustainability of the entrepreneurial ideas.
On the stands will be showed the artworks realized by start-ups and young artists during the laboratories of fabrics, mosaic and ceramics that took place last year in Martina Franca, Gravina di Puglia, Grottaglie, Corfu, Lefkada and Cephalonia. The freshness and transversality of the composition of the start-ups catalog is confirmed, with products that contemplate very different materials, processes and functions, but all Italian and Greek in manufacturing and design inspiration.
The staff of CRAFT LAB will be available to visitors of the Fiera del Levante, from 3 to 11 October 2020, to illustrate the multiple advantages and benefits produced by the various activities of the project funded by the Interreg Greece-Italy Program. In addition, it will be an excellent opportunity for visitors to meet the start-ups and young artists. On October 9th the Program Interreg Greece – Italy will organize the Cooperation Day. The event Innovation, StartUp and Networking is going to be held at 3pm with the participation of the projects INCUBA, TRACES, Craft-Lab, Sparc and many others. It will be also the occasion to present to the audience the startups created in the field of these European projects.
Starting from the beginning, the CRAFT LAB project offered the opportunity to 60 young people / artists / craftsmen / designers, 30 from Italy and 30 from Greece, to attend innovative residences in total duration of 120 hours each, to combine traditional and innovative skills with design and entrepreneurial capacities, acquiring the tools to improve their professional life and, as a consequence, to act as example for their colleagues, through the start of innovative residences oriented to the recovery of the old artisanal professions for the manufacture of ceramics, mosaic and fabrics, aiming at making design and artistic craft an asset of development and economic growth of the territories involved.
The final result foresees 6 new business start-ups, the capitalization of regional policy in the artisanal and commercial sector to favor measures to support the economic and commercial sustainability of artisanal products. The innovative dimension is to create common cross border identity that will be transferred into a single brand, to be promoted on the wider European and world market.
Pino Pascali Foundation is the Lead Partner of the Project; then CRAFT LAB counts two Italian partners, C.N.A. National Confederation of Crafts and small and medium-sized enterprises Bari and Apulia Region - Department of economic development, education, training and employment, and two Greek partners, the Regional Union of the Municipalities of the Ionian Islands and the Chamber of Lefkada. Associated partner is the Municipal Gallery of Corfu.
