Stefano Giovanazzi e Giuseppe Marcadent: HANDS IN THE DOUGH

Clay is a natural material, highly plastic and malleable, and pleasant to the touch; it is a material with just the right thermal sensations, capable of taking on many shapes, and it puts the child in a position to simultaneously coordinate multiple senses—hand, eye, smell, and hearing. It is a material that allows, with a wide variety of movements, infinite constructive ways. It contains attributes such as weight, resistance, and volume. Playing with clay involves emotional, sensory, conceptual, and imaginative investments. Exceptional offers for game documentation and socialization.
How is it structured? In the first session, we knead the clay with our hands: we manipulate, try, and retry, create, and transform. The imprints: shells, bottle caps, wheels, large and small cookie cutters create a fantastic world. A sheet of clay, what surprises! Stecchini, sticks for skewering, digging, drawing in a different way. Little architects: let’s build on the clay plan the flowers, the houses, the cities of our imagination;
• Color on our treasures: yellow, red, blue, green, and orange to bring joy to our creations.

Stefano Giovanazzi
Founder and curator of AAC Contemporary Art Archive of Rovereto. Graduated from the Rovereto State High School (TN) and subsequently from the State Art Institute in Trento. In the early 1980s, he attended the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated in Painting with artist Emilio Vedova. Since 1994, he has been the president of the cultural association Numero Civico. Over more than thirty years of activity, he has curated events related to contemporary art and thought, and his collaborations with artists, musicians, writers, museums, and cultural institutions are noteworthy. These include partnerships with the Italian Senate, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities, the Canadian Embassy, the Basque Government (Spain), the Cervantes Institute (Spain), The British Council (United Kingdom), the French Ministry of Culture, the French Institute, and the Goethe-Institut (Germany).

Giuseppe Marcadent
Ceramist. Initially graduated from a technical industrial institute, he later had the opportunity to start working in the creation of ceramics. Thus, his path changed radically. He obtained a diploma in “Ceramics Art” from the State Art Institute of Este (PD) and the qualification of “Professional Master and Qualified Artisan” in Bolzano. Artisan and artist, he creates ceramics for an audience that looks to the Eastern world, both refined and attentive to artifacts that require great technical and scientific skill for their realization. As a master artisan and restorer, he is one of the leading experts in the restoration of maiolica stoves from the Renaissance to the present day, skilled in creating and producing contemporary stoves—some particularly innovative—as well as a creative designer of new furniture objects. From an educational perspective, he is particularly active: he organizes manipulation, discovery, and play itineraries with clay for preschool children, ceramic workshops for primary school children, innovative ceramic courses using Paper clay for secondary school students, and thematic monographic courses such as the one on the ancient construction of “olle” stoves and the art of ceramics in Trentino, held at the Museum of Customs and Traditions of the Trentino People in San Michele all’Adige (TN).