Materia Design Festival

The eight edition of the Materia Design Festival will take place Sept. 27-30, 2023 in Calabria, in Tropea, among the most beautiful villages in Italy and a favorite destination for many tourists.

This year's theme is "Materia on vacation": the world of creativity is inspired by the idea of travel and tourism but also by mythical objects that can transport the imagination to distant worlds.

The event will take place in "Villa Paola" - a former convent of the Order of Minims of St. Francis of Paola that now hosts travelers from all over the world among its poetry-rich walls - with design exhibitions and in the historic center of Tropea, with talks by international guests in the Palazzo Santa Chiara and the installation "La GIGA Tropeana" in the Belvedere of Piazza del Cannone.

Materia, conceived and organized by Officine AD of architects Domenico Garofalo and Giuseppe Anania, is a festival created to stimulate the creativity and craftsmanship of Calabria through collaborations with designers, leading to the development of a network involving different actors: operators, companies and institutions, generating an important induced-revenue on the Mediterranean area. The key to this edition, linked to tourism, leads to a new narrative that is very stimulating and engaging.

The artistic direction is entrusted to designer Antonio Aricò, known and appreciated on the international scene for his interdisciplinary approach and for being an expression of the true sense of Italian design, a fusion of craftsmanship, art, design and poetry.

An exhibition of products designed by young designers from all over the world who participated in the "Materia in Vacanza" CALL is planned, the layout of which is curated by designer Natalia Carere, and a contamination of the works of artistic director Aricò inside Villa Paola. Another peculiarity of this year will be "La GIGA Tropeana," a "surprising" installation in Tropea's striking "belvedere" in Piazza Cannone.

The young designers who participated in the Call "Materia in Vacanza" will compete for the "Guglielmo Papaleo" Award from Guglielmo spa. Among the selected participants are some young people who have been following the Festival for years, such as Sapiens Design Studio with the project "Pirò" and Marlisa Marasco with "Essentia" and new participations such as Formapensiero-Laruffa Rovere Architetti with "La pietra e la luce" and Danae Dasyra and Joe Bradford with "Cobralily."

Among the international guests featured in the talks and highlights will be Marseille-based designer Emma Bruschi and London-based designer Bethan Laura Wood and two guests of honor, Birgit Lohmann of Designboom and Laura Traldi of Interni.