Announcing the launch of The Italian Glass Weeks

In the UN International Year of Glass, Vision Milan Glass Week and The Venice Glass Week unite to present The Italian Glass Weeks: Italy’s first festival dedicated to industrial and artistic glass, which will take place in Milan from 10th – 18th September and in Venice from 17th – 25th September 2022

Applications can be submitted for the Venetian week from 11th March until 3rd May, while applications for the Milanese week can be submitted until 30th May 2022

Today the representatives of Vision Milan Glass Week and The Venice Glass Week, the two most important festivals in Italy dedicated to the promotion and enhancement of glass at an international level, both from an industrial and artistic point of view, announced the launch of a new joint festival: The Italian Glass Weeks.

“The Italian Glass Weeks will be the largest event in Italy, and most probably in Europe, that will be dedicated to glass in 2022: two weeks animated by initiatives designed for all kinds of audiences. Culture and technology will be the key words that run throughout the programme: not as two separate dimensions, but deeply and inextricably linked, one functional to the development of the other, according to the peculiar characteristics that distinguish them, making them unique" – commented the President of VITRUM, Dino Zandonella Necca, who continued - “With The Italian Glass Weeks we intend to give renewed strength to the positioning of the Italian glass supply chain at an international level, underlining how the Italian proposal is “unique ”and“ original”. Only in Italy, in fact, does glass draw directly on origins that have created and developed a unique history and culture; culture and history that have never stopped, in a continuous flow that has brought them to us via centuries of tradition"

Any candidate who wishes to propose an event or project in the field of glass will be able to apply to participate in the festival from 11th March 2022. Applications for the Venetian week will be welcomed until 3rd May 2022, and Applications for the Milanese week will be welcomed until 30th May 2022. The contribution of companies, associations, sponsors and partners who would like to propose their own initiatives to be included in The Italian Glass Weeks will be fundamental to the festival programme, which is already in development with an exciting calendar of scheduled events.

For information about how to apply, and to read the “Conditions of Participation”: www.theitalianglassweeks.com

The event, designed specifically for the 2022 "UN International Year of Glass" will feature exhibitions, workshops, art installations, shows, activities for children and families as well as guided tours, cultural seminars, workshops and much more, taking place in Milan and Venice over the course of a fortnight. The Milanese week will run from 10th to 18th September, with a programme that will be primarily dedicated to industrial glass and design, while the Venetian week will run from 17th to 25th September 2022, and will be dedicated to artistic glass.

"We are particularly satisfied with this new project - said the Organising Committee of The Venice Glass Week - which could help to provide great momentum for the artistic glass sector, both this year and in the future. The five-year experience of The Venice Glass Week has paved the way for the creation of something bigger and more ambitious, thanks to the great work of all those who have always believed in the project. For Murano, which represents the homeland of international artistic glass, and which unfortunately is suffering considerably in this economically difficult period, it has the potential to become a moment of rebirth and great international visibility. The collaboration with VITRUM and Vision Milan Glass Week for The Italian Glass Weeks is therefore strategic, especially in this year which the UN has designated as the International Year of Glass. It’s a great sign, and above all it’s an important synergy that we hope will last for a long time".

For the international public, the cities of Venice and Milan are synonymous with Italian tradition and style.

Venice, thanks to the 1000-year-old tradition of glassmaking that has been handed down from generation to generation on the island of Murano, is the city of artistic glass par excellence, as well as a capital of culture and one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. In Venice, The Venice Glass Week festival has been organised since 2017, taking place across the city centre as well as Murano, surrounding islands and the mainland.

Each year the festival has featured over 250 events, involving furnaces and glass companies as well as museums, public and private foundations, universities, art Milan, which hosted the first edition of Vision Milan Glass Week, is a contemporary city which continues to represent Italy’s technological progress, and which is the true capital of the country’s economy, design industry and production sector. The city is home to GIMAV, the Trade Association belonging to CONFINDUSTRIA which represents the manufacturers and suppliers of machines, accessories, equipment and special products for glass processing. It is also where, for over forty years, glass industrialists have organized VITRUM, the International Exhibition of machinery and technologies for glass processing.

HOW TO APPLY TO PARTICIPATE

The Italian Glass Weeks welcomes applications from any organisation, institution, company or individual, from Italy or abroad, who would like to organise an event or project relating to artistic or industrial glass as part of the festival. Proposals can include exhibitions and installations, conferences, performances, workshops, themed dinners, guided tours, activities for children or any other initiative relating to glass. It is free to apply, and there is no general participation fee.

To participate in the Venetian week (17th – 25th September 2022), candidates can apply by visiting the website www.theitalianglassweeks.com and filling in the online Application Form with details of their proposed event or project by 3rd May 2022. To participate in the Milanese week (10th – 18th Seotember 2022), candidates can apply by visiting the website www.theitalianglassweeks.com and filling out the online Application Form with details of their proposed event or project by 30th May 2022.

For the Venetian week, all Applications relating to artistic glass will be evaluated and selected by the Curatorial Committee, in order to ensure that the festival will feature only events of the highest level and quality, which have been specifically devised for The Italian Glass Weeks. Chaired by the Venetian glass historian Rosa Barovier Mentasti, the Curatorial committee is composed of a team of experts in the glass sector at an international level, which this year sees the participation of Rainald Franz, Head of the Glass and Ceramics Collection at the MAK-Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art of Vienna and Susanne Jøker Johnsen, Head of Exhibitions at the Royal Danish Academy - Architecture, Design, Conservation in Copenhagen and Director of the European Glass and Ceramic Context in Bornholm in Denmark, Jean Blanchaert, gallerist and curator of Homo Faber Event 2022 and Alma Zevi, curator and Senior director of PATERSON ZEVI.

ORGANISERS

The Venice Glass Week is a non-profit initiative organised by a Committee made up of the Comune di Venezia and three of the city’s principal cultural institutions with considerable experience and expertise in the field of glass – Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Fondazione Giorgio Cini – LE STANZE DEL VETRO and Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti – together with Consorzio Promovetro Murano, the organisation that serves as the guardian of original Murano glass production and manages the Vetro Artistico® Murano trademark of the Veneto Region. Since 2018 the festival has officially been designated by the Regione del Veneto as one of the “Major Events” of the territory.

Vision Milan Glass Week is a project of VITRUM, the international trade fair for the glass processing industry which takes place every two years in Milan. The sole shareholder of VITRUM is GIMAV, the Trade Association that is part of CONFINDUSTRIA, which represents manufacturers and suppliers of machines, accessories, equipment and products for glass processing. In 2021 the event was supported by the Regione Lombardia and Città Metropolitana di Milano,and was financed by the Ministero degli Esteri and Cooperazione Internazionale through ICE Agenzia.

2022 UNITED NATIONS INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF GLASS

2022 has been designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Glass, with a view to celebrating glass at a global level. The Italian Glass Weeks is part of the official programme of the 2022 United Nations International Year of Glass and will be Italy’s most important event dedicated to glass, as well as one of the most significant glass sector events in Europe.