Gavoi, Former Barracks
The Casa delle Letterature of Rome and the MAN Museum of Nuoro, as part of the Prelude to the Festival “The Island of Stories”, are pleased to present the exhibition Anne Franchetti. The invention of the Sardinian Petra, edited by Ileana Florescu and Maria Ida Gaeta.
In the renovated spaces of the “Ex Caserma” of Gavoi, a selection of stoneware works created by the Italian-American ceramist Anne Franchetti will be exhibited, accompanied by photographs by Ileana Florescu and Ottavio Celestino.
Anne Milliken Franchetti’s path crossed different countries and languages, resulting in an original creative project in which experience, autobiographical memory, respect for the territory and artistic dimension merged. In over forty years of activity, Anne Franchetti has innovated Sardinian ceramics by using stoneware clays never before experimented with in the creation of dishes and pottery and by mixing, among other things, ashes from native flora (ferula, eucalyptus, mastic, strawberry tree etc.) to create an extraordinary and unique range of glazes. Over the years, Sardinia will become his adopted land in the conquest of a personal and collective space that will give substance to his aspirations.
This project was started at the end of the Seventies – following two fundamental trips that led her to get to know Bernard Leach, the father of modern English ceramics, and the ceramic techniques of Faenza – with the construction, near her home in Capo Ceraso, of a wood-fired kiln for firing the first ceramics. A dream that would subsequently find its outcome in the creation, in 1984, of the “Ceramiche di San Pantaleo” company – later generously donated to a local collaborator – from which the “Petra Sarda” project would come to life.
The book published on the occasion of the exhibition by Imago Multimedia – Anne Franchetti. A sardine from Maine – contains texts by Marcello Fois, Franco Masala, Edoardo Sassi, and photographs by Ottavio Celestino, Simon d’Exéa and Ileana Florescu together with a tribute by Claudio Abate. It tells the story of the life path of this great ceramist, through the testimonies of the people who shared her artistic experience, her “recipe book” and a series of images that represent the ceramics within the context that inspired them: the earth, rock, sea and Sardinian sky. Words and photographs that make up the fascinating picture of a life spent in the name of creativity.
The exhibition will then be set up at the Casa delle Letterature in Rome – Piazza dell’Orologio 3 – from 20 September 2017. Opening at 6.30pm.
