The Venice Glass Week – the first international festival devoted to Murano glassmaking – aims to revive and promote the most important artistic and industrial activity of Venice
The Venice Glass Week is an international festival devoted to the art of glassmaking, notably from the Island of Murano, and aims to celebrate and revive artistic glass, the main economic driver in Venice known throughout the world. The main promoters of the festival are important city institutions that already have experience in this field: Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti and Consorzio Promovetro Murano, the most important association in the glass sector, which also manages the Vetro Artistico Murano trademark of the Veneto Region.
The Venice Glass Week will take place from 10th to 17th September 2017, featuring exhibitions, conferences, seminars, educational activities, screenings, events, the opening of the furnaces to the public and other happenings all linked to artistic glass. Besides the initiatives organized by the four main promoters, the program envisages to include events promoted by all those who wish to participate in the festival. More than forty partners, including foundations, art galleries, glassworks, museums, cultural institutions, universities, training centers and private collectors have already confirmed their participation in the festival.
Venetian artistic glass is famous all over the world. Despite the severe crisis that Murano glass has suffered since the 2000s, glassmaking has been one of the key drivers of the Venetian economy for over 700 years, involving 1,100 employees and 150 companies, with a yearly revenue of €165 million, 66 million of which in foreign market exports.
In recent years, some of the most prominent Venetian institutions have devoted great effort to revive high-quality artistic glass in order to bring it back into the center of local, national and international attention. For example, the Murano Glass Museum has undergone a thorough restoration and extension under the supervision of the Fondazione Musei Civici, doubling the gallery space at Palazzo Giustinian, thanks to the restoration of the former Conterie, once owned by a beads firm. In a completely renovated museum visitors can now appreciate the key turning points of the fascinating thousand-old history of Murano glassmaking. Other examples are: Le Stanze del Vetro, a joint initiative of Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Pentagram Stiftung; the Venetian Glass Study Days and the Glass in Venice award, granted by the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti; the many initiatives by the Consorzio Promovetro to promote and safeguard Murano glass such as the European Glass Experience program aimed at fostering the art of glassmaking among younger generations. All these initiatives have been very successful with the public and the international media and are a common platform for broader action involving the whole city of Venice.
The Venice Glass Week logo was designed by the student Anna Scaini and was selected among proposals submitted by five students from the 2nd year of the Graphic Design course, coordinated by Professor Davide G. Aquini of IED Venezia, visual communication partner of the festival. The color of the logo is the traditional Venetian red, which has always evoked liveliness and vivacity, enthusiasm and passion. The design of the logo recalls a stylized vase with two wings like those of the lion of St. Mark.
For further information www.theveniceglassweek.com
Photo courtesy of Ikon.productions
