The sixth edition of EDIT Napoli, the editorial and authorial design fair, is gearing up for a vibrant showcase in Naples from October 11th to 13th, 2024. With over 100 Italian and international exhibitors converging at the Archivio di Stato di Napoli, the event promises a unique blend of established and emerging design talents.
The event will revolve around the works of independent designers, as well as design authors and editors, creatives and producers, who will be displaying their work in the city of Naples, now a fully-fledged scouting venue and attraction of international standing.
The EDIT Napoli mission of highlighting sustainable design, territoriality and the quality of the products on display, rather than quantity, remains very much alive, in support of production processes that combine craftsmanship with design in pieces that can be produced at scale. There will be a healthy adherence also this year, with over 100 Italian and international exhibitors expected at the Archivio di Stato di Napoli.
Alongside the winners of the last edition, Giorgio Bena and ruga.perissinotto, many firms have confirmed they will be returning this year. These include Dante Negro, De Marchi Verona, Eleit.it, Marco Ripa, MAS Design, Mediterranea Design, Monostudio, SKNYPL, as well as newcomers such as Daniela Pinotti, Ethimo, Luca Gruber, Testatonda Studio, and many more. An increasingly profiled selection has been implemented, centred on the world of living and the slow lifestyle, with products ranging from ceramics to textiles, furnishings, coverings, accessories and lighting.
As always, EDIT Napoli supports under-30s exhibitors as well as companies that are less than three years old, who will be displaying their products in a designated area within the cloister at the Seminario. This area will also feature a strong Spanish contingent thanks to the España Diseño Mediterráneo competition brief launched in collaboration with the Instituto Cervantes de Nápoles and designer Tomás Alía, who has selected five new talents for EDIT Napoli.
Fully in line with the spirit of EDIT, the principal location of the event will be the headquarters and epicentre for the entire community converging on the event, favouring connections and contact moments that – year after year – encourage new ideas and collaborations, many of which were conceived right here at EDIT.
As in previous years, contemporary design will interact with the historic architecture of the Complex. This year it will take the form of a specific setup in the first atrium of the Archivio, which will be curated by designer Sara Mondaini for Officine Tamborrino, a Puglia-based brand specialised in metalworking and in the creation of design furnishings and micro-architectural elements. She has worked with German designer Lilo Klinkenberg, of Studio Lilo, who realised the concept for the green areas.
The Corte EDIT will be a space devoted to the narrative and discovery of the brand: metal furnishing elements, structural beams in steel and an explosive nature will interact in harmony with the existing architecture, welcoming visitors into a dreamlike space right in the heart of Naples dedicated to dialogue and conviviality.
The lounge in this area will be managed this year by Feudi di San Gregorio, the historic winemaker from Irpinia and an old friend of EDIT’s, which will be returning for the third year running and will be curating the opening cocktail of the event, an “Aperitivo all’italiana” animated by its new and iconic rosé, San Greg. Over the three days of the event, it will be offering visitors wine and gourmet tastings epitomising the notion of hospitality and the Irpinia experience of Borgo San Gregorio, a meeting place for explorers in search of beauty and taste.
Emilia Petruccelli: “We are happy to see companies which, year after year, find in EDIT a qualified partner to tell their story. The synergies that have developed stand as proof of this, as with Feudi di San Gregorio, for example, but also with Crédit Agricole Italia – two different realities which see in us a space for creating value, both territorially but also in terms of design.
After five editions, the sixth opens a new five-year period for the event, which has proved its maturity with a consistent increase in exhibitors of 20% year on year. Six years on from the first edition of EDIT Napoli, we are proud to be able to say that we have always believed in this city and seen its potential. The events, the many companies and the initiatives which gravitate around it are confirmation of this”.
Domitilla Dardi: “With its characteristic effervescence and cultural pluralism, Naples is with EDIT the active setting for the world of the project, which here attains an unstandardised communitarian and exchange dimension. This city has been contemporary throughout its history, precisely because it is connected to international communities.
The many intellectuals from abroad who found their ‘home’ here over time are proof of this. The melting pot always brings novelty with it, and with EDIT we have been working in this direction from the first edition. Putting different realities in dialogue with one another in order to increase their value has always been one of our objectives. One need only think of the way we structure the CULT programme, through a meticulous and lengthy curatorial process combining projects with prestigious locations across the city, creating a series of disseminated exhibitions that enhance both content and container”.
The Jury and the Best New Project Prize
A commission made up of Italian and international designers, experts, sector operators and sector journalists will again be rewarding the most deserving projects among those presented at the fair. The jury will be composed of designer Elena Salmistraro; Gianmaria Pizzocheri, strategy project director at Dior; Dubai-based design expert Cyril Zammit; digital director of ELLE Decor Italia Alessandro Valenti.
New projects presented by the various exhibitors will be evaluated for the chance to win the annual prize awarded by the commission, offering creatives the opportunity to exhibit their work for free in the following edition. The selection criteria identify projects that embody the values of intelligent design and a profound respect for cultural heritage, all whilst factoring in a well calibrated price tag.
Thanks to a new partnership launched this year the 2024 EDIT Napoli winners will be able to participate in the MDW2025 during the next edition of LABÒ Cultural Project, in the striking industrial complex of the former SOA pharmaceutical laboratory in Via Biella 6. The project has been conceived by The Design Blender – the curatorial duo made up of Elsa Lemarignier and François Le Blanc di Cicilia. Now in its third edition, it will be hosting a selection of French and international designers, artists, art galleries and companies. As part of this unprecedented twinning, LABÒ will be present at EDIT Napoli 2024 with a site-specific installation by the visual creative Studio Undo/Redo.
EDIT Cult
There is considerable anticipation around the EDIT CULT initiatives, the disseminated exhibitions which each year, through careful curation, create a dialogue between historic locations and contemporary projects, resulting in a multi-faceted narrative spread across the city. The aim is to develop a programme with a distinct exhibition concept for design, tailored specifically for each individual exhibition, and issuing from the perfect synergy between the architectural context and the works/products on display.
“ABET È 1000 COLORI…” by Abet Laminati
Archivio di Stato di Napoli – Sede Sussidiaria di Pizzofalcone
ABET Laminati from Bra (CN) in Naples with “Abet è 1000 colori…”, an installation paying homage to the city. Founded in the late-1950s, the company will present its products in a novel form on the terrace of the Sede Sussidiaria dell’Archivio di Stato, in the Pizzofalcone district. Interpreting the company’s spirit of promoting projects of free creative exploration on surfaces, design curators Giulio Iacchetti and Matteo Ragni have conceived for EDIT Napoli a captivating installation suspended between metaphor and illusion. The location – a terrace with views to Mount Vesuvius – will be exceptionally open to the public over the three days of EDIT Napoli.
Via Egiziaca a Pizzofalcone, 44
“SHIWA SHIWA” by Kengo Kuma per Alcantara
Teatro San Carlo
For the EDIT Napoli public, the curtain will rise at the Teatro San Carlo to reveal the sets designed for Giuseppe Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra” by architect Kengo Kuma, for Alcantara. Kuma has chosen to entitle his creation “Shiwa Shiwa”, meaning crease-furrow, describing a Japanese concept relative to the curvilinear development found in nature, and its elusiveness.
A vision which Alcantara has identified to perfection in its choice of a material that is both highly innovative and sensory. With its mutable vaultings, perpetually in motion, Kengo Kuma’s design for the Alcantara wave will become the emblem of the action of the opera and a totalising artwork in its own right.
Via Teatro San Carlo, 98/f
“L’UOVO DI PARTENOPE” by Allegra Hicks
Ipogeo dei Cristallini
Among those returning to EDIT Napoli is Allegra Hicks. Renowned for her works that blend art and craftsmanship, this year she will present a project inspired by Neapolitan legends. Her work will revolve around the myth of the siren Parthenope and the egg she laid before dying, which is said to be hidden in the foundations of Castel dell’Ovo.
The piece will be on display at the Ipogeo dei Cristallini, an evocative venue and testament to Hellenistic painting and sculpture right in the heart of the Sanità-Vergini district. In a symbolism echoing the myth of the siren, Hicks’ work, much like the egg featured in the legend, will be placed in an underground location, prompting reflection on the fragility of beauty and its preservation.
Via dei Cristallini, 133
“ALONG THE EDGE – ALPI 1984-2024” by ALPI Wood
Real Museo Mineralogico
ALPI, a company at the forefront of reconstituted wood decorative surfaces, will celebrate its 40 years in the design world at EDIT Napoli with a retrospective at the Real Museo Mineralogico. ALPI will showcase some of the special projects realised in collaboration with international designers, who were free to interpret wood according to their personal poetic. Among the exhibits will be the irregularly shaped wooden totems by Konstantin Grcic, the prisms by Angelo Mangiarotti and the three archaic forms designed by Alessandro Mendini. These pieces will engage with the crystalline forms of the natural minerals in the prestigious museum setting.
Via Paladino, 39
“EDITARE iMAESTRI. TRIBUTO A FILIPPO ALISON” by Cassina
Palazzo Reale di Napoli
Cassina, the historic design company founded in Meda in 1927, will be presenting inside Palazzo Reale a tribute to the Neapolitan architect, designer and professor Filippo Alison, who from 1973 became a key figure for the renowned Cassina iMaestri Collection, the reissue project of furniture designed by the protagonists of the Modern Movement, which was initiated by the company in the mid-1960s.
The Teatro di Corte will raise the curtain on the research carried out by Alison since the 1970s on the furniture by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, true milestones in the history of design. At the centre of the stage, the Hill House 1 chair and the Willow 1 armchair, iconic models that are to this day part of the Cassina iMaestri Collection, tell a story which connects the city of Naples with the world of international editorial design.
Piazza del Plebiscito, 1
“GALATEO ANCESTRALE” by Incalmi e Caterina Roppo
Complesso Museale Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco
Incalmi presents “Galateo Ancestrale”, a research project developed in collaboration with artist Caterina Roppo – a textile dialogue inspired by the breath. Inspired by the free act of breathing, the works are the latest evolution of an in-depth study on textile that the artist has developed step-by-step with Incalmi’s expertise.
This three-dimensional exploration captures the fabric weaves using metal. A moment which galvanises and solidifies into sinuous forms that seem to continue moving through space. An interplay of contaminations, materic and ancestral research that will lead visitors into the church’s hypogeum where, in a dialogue with the location, the unconscious will surface.
Via dei Tribunali, 39
“NEURO-PHILIA” by THiRTYONE Design + Management
Museo Civico Gaetano Filangieri
Designer Claudia Campone, with her creative studio THiRTYONE Design + Management and in collaboration with Paolo Milani, Francesca Borghi and Benedetta Fazzolari, will be mounting an installation within the Museo Civico Gaetano Filangieri. Digital technology has revolutionised the way we create, duplicate and distribute, making the distinction between real and seemingly real more nebulous, and conferring a negative connotation to copies.
But what if we could instead use new technologies and tools to our advantage, restoring the advantageous significance to the copy? This reflection has given life to the project “Neuro-philia”, an exploration of the concepts of the real and the seemingly real applied to connections between the brain, neurological tissues and digital technologies, in dialogue with the world of weaving and plant fibres.
Via Duomo, 288
EDIT Napoli 2024: Nurturing Future Design Talents and Enriching the Program
Strengthened Partnerships with Educational Institutions
EDIT Napoli continues its commitment to fostering the next generation of design talent. This year, the fair has solidified partnerships with renowned educational institutions, including Accademia Italiana, IUAD, and RUFA. These collaborations offer students invaluable opportunities to become active members of the EDIT community, laying the groundwork for successful careers in the design industry.
Engaging Talks and Presentations
In addition to the main exhibition, EDIT Napoli will host several engaging talks and presentations to complement the overall program. Highlights include:
- A Conversation with Tomás Alía: On Friday, October 11th, at 4:30 PM, renowned designer Tomás Alía will discuss his experience working with Spanish exhibitors selected for EDIT Napoli through the partnership with the Instituto Cervantes de Nápoles.
- Book Launch: “The Aquarium is a Listening Glass” On Saturday, October 12th, at 10:30 AM, join us at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn within Villa Comunale for the launch of this captivating new book by Louise E. Carver and Angela Rui, published by Humboldt Books.
Curator and director EDIT Napoli: Emilia Petruccelli
EDIT Napoli curator: Domitilla Dardi
11 — 13 October 2024: open to the public from 10am to 7pm
Archivio di Stato di Napoli
Vico Monte della Pietà, 2, Naples
Fair ticket + EDIT CULT: €20 (full); €10 (reduced for students); free tickets for visitors under 14.
Ticket available at Archivio di Stato di Napoli, or online at: https://editnapoli.com/visit/