On the occasion of Saint Ours, at the Atelier des Métiers in Piazza Chanoux, in the space reserved for L’Artisanà, the new initiative born from the collaboration between L’Artisanà, the Autonomous Region of Valle d’Aosta and Skyway Monte Bianco will be presented.
This project brings some artisans from the Aosta Valley to meet an internationally renowned designer, Matteo Ragni, winner of two Compasso d’Oro, the oldest and most prestigious industrial design award in the world, already in contact with Skyway Monte Bianco. The opening of the comparison between craftsmanship and design has allowed us to develop new reflections on the importance of an open and equal dialogue between creativity and manual skill, inventiveness and artisan intelligence.
This project, in fact, is focusing on the four-handed reworking of the friendship cup, a traditional object that is highly symbolic also for the values of friendship and conviviality that it brings with it.
The various stages of the project’s conception and creation will be unveiled at the Atelier des Métiers, while the result of the project and the new friendship cups created will be officially presented during Milan Design Week, scheduled from 15 to 21 April.
Exhibition "Creating is a woman, Aosta Valley craftsmanship by women"
The exhibition “Creating is a woman, Aosta Valley craftsmanship” opens to the public in the exhibition hall of the Collegiata dei Santi Pietro e Orso in Aosta. An exhibition that celebrates female craftsmanship, a hymn to manual skills that have no gender. At the center is know-how: a story of tenacity and passion, a thread that unites times, places and people. The exhibition opens with a contemporary installation that uses the craft object to tell the present time. The journey then continues with three rooms that, work after work, tell the passion of hobbyist craftsmen, the life choices of professionals and the preservation of a tradition of the past with textile cooperatives. The room dedicated to hobbyist craftsmen will be set up during the days of the millenary through the works selected from the exhibitors’ stalls. From weaving to sculpture, from carving to ceramics, the exhibition is a journey between tradition and innovation, between manual skills and creativity of Aosta Valley women craftsmen.
The exhibition is open to the public from January 28 to September 1, 2024. During the Foire de Saint-Ours, it can be visited from 10:00 to 17:00 with free admission.
Aosta and MAV store opening
During the days of the Fair, the shop of L’Artisanà di Aosta, located in Piazza Chanoux under the arcades of the Town Hall, will remain open and will be ready to welcome customers to illustrate and sell them the handicraft objects branded IVAT: objects in ceramic, leather, iron, wood, soapstone, glass and textile products resulting from the millenary tradition of the Aosta Valley.
The MAV – Museum of Traditional Aosta Valley Crafts will also be open to the public free of charge to offer all craft enthusiasts the opportunity to visit the exhibition space and the heritage preserved therein, witnesses to the culture of the area.
Oeuvre Choisie among the benches of the millenary
Also this year the MAV – Museum of Traditional Aosta Valley Crafts is proposing the initiative “Oeuvre Choisie”, an event that has been held every ten years at the museum and eagerly awaited by the exhibiting artisans.
Starting at dawn on Tuesday, January 30, the museum will identify among the stalls of the fair the works that, due to their characteristics, represent the ideal fil-rouge between the past and present of traditional Aosta Valley craftsmanship. All the selected works will subsequently be exhibited at the MAV with an exhibition dedicated to them.