comOn

The third edition of comON – the first creativity sharing system on a European scale aimed at identifying and providing support to the most promising talents in the fashion, design and arts fields, proactively bringing them into contact with the manufacturing world - promises to be of utmost international importance thanks to the popular and critical success of the previous edition. A unique and exclusive multidisciplinary project which was first conceived in 2008 under the aegis of Confindustria Como (the Como Industrial Association), fruit of the intuition of a group of young Larian entrepreneurs in the textile sector with the invaluable contribution of Li Edelkoort, according to the Times the world’s most renowned trend forecaster, the project aims to create a permanent training workshop not simply limited to talent scouting but rather a hub of European creativity, a crossroads of insight and opportunity to assist the young in discovering their own paths and which finds in Como, with its extraordinary heritage and vocation, its natural setting.

The importance and value of comOn lie in its ability to involve the most talented European creative minds, activating working partnerships with fashion and design companies and providing real support for their ambitions: a number of young people have already found employment thanks to comON.

Water will be this edition’s key theme, one which spans the three discipline fields of the event(design, fashion, art) and which will accompany Europe’s most talented young creative minds right through to the culminating event of the comON project, “Creativity Week” which will be held from 17 to 24 October in Como and which sees the Larian city vibrate with creative energy, swathe itself in yellow and host exhibitions, events and workshops in which it is the young artists and designers and their works that are the true protagonists.

comON Design ( under the patronage of the ADI, Associazione Design Industriale Lombardia- the Industrial Design Association of Lombardy)

Once again coordinated by Taissa Buescu, design sector journalist and curator, comON Design Workshop 2010 will proceed on the theme of recycling, but this year’s focus will be on “recycling ideas,” revisiting pieces and/or materials from collections that are no longer in production, outdated machinery and techniques as well as industrial waste materials.  This year the workshop’s young participants will not be nominated by schools, but rather selected by means of a competition for final year industrial design students and/or recent graduates from all over Italy. The contest will select candidates – who will enter in pairs – on the basis of the projects contained in their academic portfolios. The completion was launched in conjunction with the “Salone del Mobile 2010,” Milan’s international furniture fair, and published on the comON website (http://designcontest.comon-co.it). The candidates’ work was judged by panel of international experts made up of Luisa Bocchietto (president of the ADI – Associazione per il Disegno Industriale – the Industrial Design Association), Silvana Annicchiarico (Director of the Triennale Design Museum), Rossana Orlandi (art dealer and talent scout), Paola Navone (designer) and Piero Lissoni (designer). The winning couples of final year students/recent graduates will be offered an internship lasting approximately one month (3/4 weeks) at one of the eleven participating companies (ARFLEX, BAXTER, DESALTO, GALLOTTI & RADICE, LEMA, LIMONTA, LIVING DIVANI, MOLTENI&C, OMP PORRO, POLIFORM and TRE P TRE PIU’). Each couple will be referred to a company on the basis of an evaluation by the tutors/designers Massimiliano Adami and Lorenzo Damiani. In the course of the internship the final year students/recent graduates will become acquainted with the manufacturing process, study the pieces and/or materials to be recycled(collections no longer in production, outdated machinery and techniques and industrial waste materials, etc.) to plan and produce, always as a couple and working inside the company to which they have been assigned, a prototype which uses these pieces and/or materials as a starting point.

The eleven prototypes created will make up the comON Design Exhibition which will be inaugurated on 17 October.

comON_Fashion

The activity of the textile sector allows the more than thirty most talented and promising fashion designers selected by the most highly respected European institutions involved in the field of talent scouting to be brought into contact with the productive reality of the Como textile and fashion sector via six-week in-company internships, guided visits to the main centers of excellence in the Larian territory, conferences and workshops of an educational nature.

comON_Art

comON 2010 includes an important event in the field of art, the creation in Piazza Volta of Caterina Aircardi’s artistic installation “Armonia di inversioni” (A Harmony of Inversions), winner of the 2009 comON Art Project "sustainable creativity” contemporary art competition. Also in this case the inauguration will take place during Creativity Week. The art pieces will bring Piazza Volta to life and give comON high visibility in the city centre, as will the comON Design Exhibition’s positioning in Piazza Verdi. The itinerary relating to “Armonia di Inversioni” will include a phase in Milan where the project will be presented at the Accademia di Brera.

The exhibition event “H2O_ new scenarios for survival”

Designing with water seems absurd, but since environmental issues are themes we must increasingly deal with, the field of design cannot exempt itself from exploring it all its forms. It is from this reflection that the long work of the H2O New scenarios for survival exhibition and event’s curator, architect Roberto Marcatti, began. He gathered together 100 designers, architects and graphic designers who, with their plans, drawings, sketches, projects and provocations, explored an increasingly urgent social issue: water. The ambitious underlying theme of the project was from the very start that of making these professionals claim back the social and civil purpose of the culture of design and communication, highlighting the strong ties that is has with current events and the unresolved problems of everyday life, and perhaps for the first time these interpreters shook off class based interests and freely spoke out professionally against that which is not ethical and which does not meet social needs. The curator, architect Roberto Marcatti, deliberately stood on the sidelines, refraining from participating with designs from his own drawing board to guarantee impartiality, knowing however that the participants would not be able to find tangible solutions to all problems. Nevertheless, the “water” project reached its goal: the culture of design acted spontaneously and selflessly with this initiative, putting itself on the line in the name of a belief, aware of its part in a much more far-reaching design.