ARTESANOS: A design for Life

The ARTESANOS Manufactura Peruana project will be shown for the first time at Cinema Casoretto during the Milan Design Week. This project will be hosted in a peculiar location: an old theatre in Milan reopened after almost 30 years just for this special event at Fuorisalone 2024.

Since its foundation, ARTESANOS' goal has been to provide food for the poor children of many Latin American communities, not only by providing them with daily bread but also by instructing and educating them in art, founding real artisanal schools for sculpture, carving, mosaic, weaving, glass fusion, and other artistic techniques.

In 2021, a process of renewing the brand and the existing collection began, led by curators Luisa Bertoldo and Davide Fabio Colaci, who along with a team of volunteers and creatives started a journey of observation and rediscovery of the products within the schools and workshops (talleres).

This first new collection is called ADB24 and retrieves and reworks some furnishings from the style office of Chacas (ARTESANOS' Headquarters at 4000m in the Andes) and its talleres scattered throughout Peru. To these furnishings are added the first projects by designers Maddalena Casadei, Giulio Iachetti, and the duo Zaven, identified to kick off this renewal.

The re-launch of the brand will also be accompanied by a documentary produced and directed by filmmaker and actor Francesco Mandelli and a reportage by photographer Alessandro Treves, travel companions alongside the designers and volunteers of Operazione Mato Grosso.