Ceramics, before being design, are territory.
The sun falls on the ruins of Ocriculum and the stone holds the heat. The ground is pale and dusty, dry grass bending among the broken arches of the ancient Roman city overlooking the Tiber. July light flattens distances and leaves short, dense shadows across the surfaces. Within this landscape appear the forms of Idilla, the collection designed by Manuel Di Giacobbe for Alice Ceramica.
The cylindrical volumes of the ceramic settle among the ruins with natural ease. Glazed surfaces gather the full light of the day and return deep, saturated colours, almost liquid. A few kilometres from here, across the border between Umbria and Lazio, ceramics are produced at the Alice factory. Earth is mixed, shaped and fired — matter passing through fire to become form. Bringing Idilla among the ruins of Ocriculum reconnects ceramics with a wider continuity: that of the landscape. Stone speaks of the long time of ancient architecture. Ceramics introduce a contemporary presence made of proportion, gesture and surface. Among ruins, earth and sun, Idilla rediscovers its origin: a contemporary form born from the same matter as the land.
Here ceramics return to being earth.
Credits
Photography: Matteo Bellomo
