EDIT Napoli 2022, Innesti Bar, Astrid Luglio for Feudi di San Gregorio, Complesso San Domenico Maggiore, photography Serena Eller Vainicher
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EDIT Napoli: Let’s be fair, a consolidation of what’s been made in the previous years

A panel of international experts is hired to assign a prize for the best ‘inedito’ – the winners can return to display their products the following year at EDIT Napoli and at the FuoriSalone in Milan

EDIT Napoli founders Emilia Petruccelli and Domitilla Dardi speaks to Lampoon

Emilia Petruccelli and Domitilla Dardi paths intertwined at Petruccelli’s design gallery, Galleria MIA, in Rome. It led to the creation of EDIT. Dardi was struck by Petruccelli’s selection, «it was something unusual for Rome’s market. I’ve seen those kinds of pieces only abroad», she said. 

A few years later, Petruccelli decided that she wanted to create a design fair and the only person she wanted to start this project with was Dardi for whom she had much esteem. Dardi explains: «I received an email from Petruccelli, asking if I wanted to join her in this design fair. I replied: `That’s fine but it cannot be a fair dedicated to collectibles, that market is oversaturated, let’s go back to you, let’s go back to your experience, how do you make the selection for your store?». In this way, just as designers create pieces because they cannot find them on the market, Petruccelli and Dardi created a concept of design fair that was missing.

EDIT Napoli’s pillars 

The EDIT project started as a necessity for design gallery owners, as Petruccelli, to be able to find products for their selection that were aligned with their own taste and likings. «It was hard to find things that weren’t artisanal but author’s pieces» says Petruccelli.  The idea of putting together a selection of products that had just one common denominator, that is being made by editor designers and authors, was not a mere personal necessity, but needed to create value within the whole design’s circuit. 

EDIT’s fair serves its products, showcases them and emphasizes them. It’s a reality-driven fair, «the type of quality that we support comes from a research process that has to be closed during the moment dedicated to sales» adds Dardi.

EDIT’s spirit is based on never creating partnerships that are just mere transactions, its collabs take place because the proposed projects look appealing to EDIT’s team; companies or people that just want to showcase their logos are not even considered. EDIT is an independent fair with a specific business identity that, after tough choices, with a professional community of designers and the support towards the territory – region of Campania – which is mutual, was able to generate added value internationally, through contents and connections, and to grow as a community.

’Let’s be fair’– EDIT Napoli fourth edition

Once again, the city of Naples has recently been the stage of the editorial design fair founded in 2019 by Petruccelli and Dardi: EDIT Napoli. This fourth edition was based on the pun ‘Let’s be fair’ and the event formula kept its original essence with some twists.

«During edit’s last editions we focused on themes such as welcoming, Naples, the reason behind this kind of design. For this year we have deepened already existing themes such as fair’s traceability, territoriality and sustainability. This one last theme, is not intended in a biological and ecological sense, but in terms of the value of the object, the creative process, the production process, the market value, the idea and the research behind the product, in this way we consider a product sustainable», says Petruccelli.

Let’s be fair represents the willingness to express that now is the time to be equal, sustainable and fair, but at the same time to claim what EDIT is. A fair, an opportunity for designers and exhibitors to be seen, appreciated, to create connections and do business. Therefore, the pun on one hand it highlights the business side of the fair, on the other the concept of fairness that lays on the whole selection showcased at the event. 

EDIT’s 2022 edition can be considered as a consolidation of what’s been made in the previous years, consequently, the innovative part concerns the unreleased design pieces that are exhibited within the Complesso of San Domenico Maggiore. EDIT assigns a prize for the best ‘inedito’ each year. In every edition a panel of international experts in the field is hired to assign this prize, that gives the participants the opportunity to return to display their products the following year at EDIT Napoli and at the Padiglione Brera of the FuoriSalone in Milan. 

The Panel at EDIT Napoli

The panel’s evaluation always bases on projects that adhere to the selection criteria of embodying smart design values and having a strong respect for cultural heritage, all at a well gauged sale’s price.  This year’s winners were ‘ccontinua+mamt’ for the main area of the event, whose project was based on the transformation of words and drawings into a personal narration, and ‘Paolo Marasi Design’ for the Seminario area – the special area reserved for exhibitors under thirty and for firms under three years old –  who introduced the smart chair RODO.

Development of special projects

Parallel to the fair itself, each year EDIT Napoli develops various projects. These are partnerships among places, people, artists and firms from different backgrounds that inevitably underline networking. According to Petruccelli, highlights projects by designer Astrid Luglio and I feudi di San Gregorio and the one involving the Design Lab of the San Patrignano community and the artist Agostino Iacurci. 

The Feudi di San Gregorio-Astrid Luglio partnership developed a storytelling centered project using the bar inside San Domenico Maggiore’s court as a canvas to display, to tell the values of San Domenico through their land, using the materials and craft techniques of Irpinia. 

San Patrignano and Agostino Iacurci, who is well-known for his large-scale wall paintings, focused on creating and setting up an exhibition for the entrance of Complesso Monumentale di San Domenico Maggiore, which displays the rose and ‘non ti scordar di me’ (forget-me-nots) that are two main symbols of Neapolitan culture. Petruccelli explains: «this collab has deeply caught us up, seeing Agostino’s idea being realized by guys that live within a community, for whom working is a source of redemption, it was a moving and interesting experience».

Lastly, another aspect that has changed over the years is the selection of the venues for EDIT Cult, a program of exhibitions, scattered around several places, dedicated to the culture of designing, with the aim of opening and promoting to the public some of Naples’ locations that host presentations of projects with an international reach. 

EDIT Cult 2022 – ‘Only in Napoli

The fourth edition of EDIT Cult’s business-unrelated exhibitions embodies Napoli’s spirit and expresses the history of the design culture. The research for Cult’s places is capillary and its result is the combination between the content and the container. 

«Sometimes we revive some known places, if there is the right project to continue in that context or we find new venues if the project demands it», says Domitilla. Among this year’s exhibitions there was the silk tapestry work ‘DIVINAZIONE’ made by Allegra Hicks at la Chiesa di SS. Filippo e Giacomo, Michele De Lucchi with ‘Le Casette delle Pezzentelle’ at the Church museum of Santa Luciella, and the retrospective ‘PARALLELS’ created by Piet Hein Eek at Fondazione Made in Cloister, which will be open until November 20th, 2022. 

This year’s EDIT Cult included the presentation of the restored didactic garden within the Istituto Caselli Real Fabbrica di Capodimonte, an initiative started back in 2019 thanks to the auction of the prototypes of the HYBRIDA collection designed by Patricia Urquiola. This project, curated by garden designer Marta Fegiz, consisted of a porcelain garden made with pieces belonging to EDIT’s brand ‘Made in EDIT’. «These are things that can only happen in Naples, having those kinds of places that open the doors for you and tell you’ come with the research, the thought, the product, the imagination and contaminate my reality’ is not common».

EDIT – the building of a designers’ community

Creating a designers’ community has always been the goal within EDIT’s project. It is because being part of EDIT means to acknowledge to be an editor, an author and be aware that in order to have a marketplace, a network and visibility, it requires to have the opportunity to showcase your creations somewhere. 

EDIT’s 2022 edition matured this community aspect. This year in particular numerous designers that previously started exhibiting as solos in EDIT, joined a partnership with other designers, to name one of those,’Very Simple Kitchen’ exhibit their collaboration with Pietra Compattata for the project entitled Zdora by Serena Confalonieri.

EDIT keeps looking forward

EDIT is looking for novelty concerning design and wants to give space to different materials, techniques and products. One subject that is currently emerging within EDIT, and the design world in general, is textile and coverings. In both cases the raw material is common and EDIT’s exhibitors want to create things from scratch, therefore without using already existing equipment. 

EDIT’s future includes to keep investing on ‘Atlante’, EDIT’s ad hoc search engine. Through this online platform, the fair is able to exhibit its products all year long and, consequently, to create a larger market place composed by architects, buyers, gallery owners but also visitors coming from over the world. EDIT’s policy states that investing and insisting on something can be better than creating new, maybe not so useful, projects.

EDIT Napoli

P.za S. Domenico Maggiore, 8A, 80134 Napoli NA

The editorial design fair dedicated to Italian and international designers, manufacturers, artisans and producers, directed by Emilia Petruccelli and curated by Domitilla Dardi. The fourth consecutive edition of the event was held within the spaces of the Complesso Monumentale di San Domenico Maggiore and in some typical and intimate venues strictly connected to Neapolitan culture.

Martina Maritato

The writer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article.

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