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serial planks

2016





Client: Nilufar Gallery 
Manufacturer: Fonderia Artistica Battaglia
Photo credits: Delfino Sisto Legnani
Virginia Taroni

“In 2014, the historical Fonderia Artistica Battaglia invited me as an art director, to create a project that opened doors to new applications for bronze and the lost-wax process. The goal was to reach and attract a growing sector as Design-Art.”    


Maria Cristina Didero about Bronzification solo exhibition:

“A plank of wood – a precious commodity, by nature absolutely unique and unrepeatable, becomes first a wax model, then a bronze item to be replicated again and again in series, and ultimately transformed into something else? Very interesting».
This was my immediate thought when Francesco Faccin – a designer of enormous talent for making and how-to-make it, with an obsessive attention for the process – preferably with hands on experience – presented me with this charming project titled Bronzification.
This is almost a contradiction in terms simply because the idea of bronze as a material commonly used in ancient times, clashes when declined in the word ‘bronzification’ – a word that does not even exist in the Zingarelli Italian dictionary. It is as the definition coined by Faccin has defined a new chemical process, an accelerated transition of state to allow any kind of materials to become bronze. The term bronze suggests something completely different; it conjures up the images of eternity, stability and consequently, solidity. However looking deeper, it is easy to understand the reason for this choice”...

Serial Planks collection:

A larch plank (150 cm long and 7 cm wide) was used to make the initial mold and then cast in bronze to create an infinite number of shapes. Despite being made from the same piece of wood, all of the resulting planks of bronze have a unique patina due to the ancient process they were made with. For this reason, variation and imperfections are a highlight of the collection.


“Bronzification” solo exhibition, Milan Design Week, 2016.






















process pictures