This new series, COLLECTIBLE In-Depth, unveils the backstage of contemporary creation. Tackling various topics from personal designer processes to the position of collectible design on the global design market, COLLECTIBLE In-Depth offers different views to suit all tastes. Today we speak with Giulia Cosenza, interior designer & ceramicist artist. 

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COLLECTIBLE: Why do you focus on contemporary collectible design? What does it mean for you?

Giulia Cosenza: As a designer and ceramic artist, for me collectible design is the sweet spot where these two disciplines meet: a hybrid space that gives the opportunity to challenge standard conventions and create one of a kind pieces that expand the definition of what design is. Being able to distill ideas into unique items that only a handful of collectors will own, also allows for the creation of relational pieces: they embody a certain idea while at the same time being open to the collector’s interpretation, the routines and rituals they will create around it.

C: Can you talk about a new piece / collection that you release for COLLECTIBLE this year?

GC: I will release a completely new project this year: Terra Incognita is a limited edition series of wheel-thrown ceramic perfume bottles designed and entirely handmade by me. Inspired by an emotion or state of mind, each piece is the crystallisation into shape of a feeling. Perfume bottles as we know them are mostly made of glass, allowing us to see the content. Using ceramics is a design choice which hints at the difficulty to clearly see and access emotions. A landscape of bottled up feelings was created, where each perfume bottle embodies and “contains” three main emotions: regret, closeness, compassion. Regret is an edgy, sharp bottle that stands tall. Closeness is a round, enveloping and welcoming shape. Lastly compassion evokes a flowing emotion spreading like a ripple effect on water. 

C:  If you were to collaborate with someone outside of the design scene, from another industry, who would you pick?

GC: A perfume maker/brand. In a way it is a collaboration process that I have already started tentatively for the fair. In the context of the above mentioned project (Terra Incognita, a series of ceramics perfume bottles), I teamed up with Clarissa Leyting(Scent studio) who made possible the development of three concept fragrances to be experienced exclusively during Collectible fair, corresponding to the three emotions that the bottles embody: closeness, compassion and regret. Visitors will be able to see, experience and smell what these emotions feel like. I was looking for an activation experience that would carry the idea further, beyond the formal language of design and to a more subconscious and emotional level. I wish to explore this cross-disciplinary approach more and more after the fair.

C: How do the questions transform to the final narrative of the piece?

GC:  In this project the narrative was very clear to me from the beginning: expressing feelings and emotions by sculpting them in shape. The choice of perfume bottles as an outcome is what allowed me to carry this idea further into pieces that are intentionally a vessel, a physical and metaphorical container of the idea, while at the same time quite literally drawing people into the narrative thanks to the involvement of senses that we often forget as designers, in this case smell. The project addresses the limited scope that design per se has when it comes to expressing something as complex as an emotion: If the bottle is the start of telling a story, the scent is what allows for its complexity to unfold and reach the senses before the mind, the emotions before the thoughts and the individual memories before the formal language of design. In this sense, the concept fragrances developed for the fair are very personal ones: what I hope is that the vessel as the container of this idea will stay with the collector, while they will be able to “fill it up” with their own favourite scents, hence personal memories, associations, feelings.

C: Where do you take your inspiration from?

GC: For me inspiration is a sort of drive that makes the creation of the piece necessary. This drive mostly comes from personal experiences. While I hope that Terra Incognita will resonate with many, at the same time it tells the very personal story of the relationship between me and a loved one, who has been dealing with depression. How to connect and express affection and support to someone who can sometimes feel alienated and isolated even from their closest connections? Sculpting these experiences in shape, the project addresses topics as mental health and expression of feelings to a loved one within these circumstances: a complex relationship as fleeting and changing on the skin as a perfume, maybe an attempt to create a tangible coping mechanism to a difficult yet loving relationship. 

C: Can you briefly describe your process?

GC: This is probably interesting to explain in the context of the Architect>Designer section: I am originally trained as an architect, even though I have been working now for almost 10 years as a ceramic artist. I always start with an idea, some visual compositions of shapes and volumes. At the same time, for me process is key. Working at the potter’s wheel, I let my hands feel and get immersed into the material(the clay) and work as a sculptor, distilling that initial idea into tangible metaphors, pieces that on the one hand embody a certain feeling while at the same time playing with a very specific visual language. Working with clay, the process is quite magical to me: it shows how you can turn a piece of muddy earth into a refined object by just using your hands.