Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi Interview 

EB: How are you doing and where are you right now?

VCS: I’m currently in Paris. I've been here for a few days and have been going to some museums like the Yves Saint Laurent Museum as well as seeing an amazing show about botanical influences in art and jewelry at the Beaux Arts. I really like Applied Art and I think that Paris is always good for this because they don’t divide design and decoration, which is what tends to happen in Italy. 

I’m Italian and I studied design in Italy. I come from a place where we have our masters of Italian design that focus on this idea of ‘perfect design’, which can be very industrial and very precise. It’s absolutely great, but it doesn't indulge in something that’s always been very important to me, which is the surface of the object and decoration, something that is a bit more vernacular. In French culture, decoration is more considered and they embrace it quite a lot. I'm not saying I don't like Italian design, I love it! I’ve just always been interested in this language of ornamentation that comes more from France or Austria. It has a specific energy that I like.

EB: In your own words, what do you do?

VCS: Commercially, I work as an art director and set designer. I've also been developing my own personal research about objects and their representation. I work with artisans and suppliers to create objects with different kinds of techniques and materials. Then I always photograph them because for me, it’s not just important to create an object, but to also realize a visual world around it. For the gallery I’ve made a collection of glassware. There are drinking pieces, jewelry containers and some incense holders. I enjoyed this because I like to work with, transform and expand on a practice of decoration.

EB: I appreciate what you're saying about how an integral piece to the story of these objects is how they live a different, but complementary life with their photographic representation.

VCS: When it comes to photographing these pieces it's interesting for me to approach them as props. It doesn't mean that the objects aren’t real, but more to imagine them as a part of a bigger picture, a frozen moment in time. I hope these images evoke an event, a place, or a person. I’ve always been inspired by production design in movies. I love watching the details and objects of a scene. It’s also a mix of influences, a balance between something retro to evoke the feeling of old commercials and at the same time, something contemporary. I’m always trying to find this balance.

EB: I would love to learn a little bit about your creative journey.

VCS: I studied industrial design in Italy. It was a bit of a random decision for me at the time because I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do. While studying, I became fascinated with images. I was looking at magazines and books and I was attracted to the 2d versus 3d object. After school I started to work as an art director where I created environments that played with the balance between real and fantasy spaces, which ended up greatly influencing my personal work.

For a few years, I was working for a company in Veneto and at that time, I started to experiment with ceramics. I really enjoyed working in ceramic and realized a large collection of pieces. In 2017, I was commissioned to do a show for the Salone di Mobile in Milano. I was quite influenced by the exhibition space that the curator, Annalisa Rosso had found. It was an empty, stripped down street level shop. What I found really interesting about it was that there were four big windows, which gave me the idea to create a fake boutique. It would be something that would evoke the atmosphere with a little bit of intimacy, and a specific relationship between the interior and exterior.

You can't have a boutique without perfume, so I wanted to find an artisan that could create a perfume bottle object. I started with a very different idea of using colored, chunky glass, but then Annalisa helped me discover this small company that works in borosilicate glass. I was so taken with the material that I swiftly changed ideas and created a large scale perfume bottle as a main display for the installation. The idea was to have this oversized bottle that could look very fragile and scary at the same time. That’s how I first started working with this material.

After the installation I got a commission from a private collector to design champagne and wine glasses for her. It was amazing because she actively uses them. It took a full year to develop the collection and at first the glass artisans were super scared of my drawings! We’ve since developed a relationship over the years and making unique pieces also allows us to work in an experimental way to create something beautiful and one of a kind.

EB: Do you enjoy when these extremely experimental commissioned pieces get used by their owners?

VCS: Sometimes the commissions are more challenging than the self-initiated pieces. The client will ask something specific that wouldn't be a natural first choice. Part of this is to satisfy the owner's desire and make them happy. It's a pleasure for them to have these weird objects and enjoy the final result in their hands. So yes, their functionality is important. I want this object to be used. But their function is also to visually please. Like ornamental objects from the 17th or 18th century that people would love. It's like clothing, a special dress used for a tradition or occasion. Italians are pretty traditional people. There has always been this tradition of Il Servizio Buono, which is tableware you’d use only for Christmas or special occasions. This isn't so common today, but it's part of our memory, these objects that you would own, but almost never use. The people who own my pieces are more familiar with this kind of thing. They celebrate the object as something special, be it for everyday use or not.

EB: There is definitely a functionality in providing visual pleasure!

VCS: Take the big architects, which I think are great, but sometimes they're a bit dogmatic. Le Corbusier for instance was modern, but at the same time, it wasn’t necessarily always the right thing to do. For me it has a lot to do with human feeling, with behaviors, with memory, and we are all different. So I believe that it's good to not be too standardized. Mies van der Rohe was wonderful, but he was using these pure walls of marble with no doors and everything open. Maybe this wasn't something that would work for everybody. It was perfect for his idea, but it wouldn't give space for something else. It's like when you want candy or dessert, something a bit more indulgent. That's what I really like to do. I think you can do a lot with decoration. It’s something to me that has a future.

EB: How did you develop your working relationship with the artisans for the borosilicate pieces? 

VCS: It evolved in an interesting way. The first time I went there I brought with me very rough sketches as if they were purposefully not finished because I wanted to learn more. I went to the studio and got an understanding of their craft and process. Then I went home and redesigned everything based on what I saw. This is normally how I work because I think it makes sense to start from a common ground and only then you slowly start to push, change, alter, and deform what is existing. The very first time we started working together they were very silent and serious. These artisans are a family of a mother, father, and son that all work together. During my first visit, the son looked at my drawings and thought I was crazy! Now he is the one that is in charge of the most complex forms because he really loves to do it. 

Normally I work with a one-to-one scale hand drawing. Once I’m at the studio, there is always change from the paper to the glass. Even if my drawings are pretty accurate, I have to take into consideration the thickness of the material, which may change as the glass gets worked. It could also be something I want to change in the moment. This is possible because they trust me and they let me be there when they work, which is something that wasn't always the case. Now, they let me stay there to play around with them. It's always very joyful to be there with them.

EB: The process must be both special and intense.

VCS: Something else to remember is that working with this material is very different from Murano glass. Borosilicate is a traditional industrial glass that is used for chemistry because it's very resistant. Unlike Murano glass, you don’t start from a liquid material. You start with an industrial shape like a tube, cylinder or bar and you deform it when heated. That's what I mean when I talk about forcing the material. When you work with glass, you have to be mindful of the tension that occurs if it gets cold too quickly, which can lead to breakages or even explosions. Given the difficulties of working the material, I'm really grateful to my craftspersons because they're so skilled and humble. They always make it work and it's a very nice relationship. When we did the new pieces for the gallery, I think they really understood me. They listened and really went for it.

EB: Your newest work for the gallery feels like it has emerged from an ideal moment where you have this trust and history with the artisans.

VCS: For me, it's a pleasurable moment when I work with them. I don't feel any kind of bad pressure, but instead a kind of good pressure. So yes, it's quite ideal. I think I've been lucky so far to have these people that believed in me and wanted to expand the typologies of objects I’ve been making.

EB: Are there any other influences or inspirations throughout various design histories?

VCS: Art Nouveau and the Austrian Wiener Werkstätte movements are big influences. The pieces I make are not necessarily similar to them, but I love the spirit of work from that time. I also like 70s objects like jewelry. I’m also inspired by ancient Roman objects and their sense of proportion. I’ve always been interested in altering proportion and also never make tiny objects. They’re always a bit bigger than normal. I don't know if it's about being generous or if it just results from the process, but I always make things a bit too big.
One designer that I really love from the Wiener Werkstätte is Dagobert Peche. He made one piece that I took a lot of inspiration from for my work for the gallery. It’s a box that has quite an animated movement to it and has a feeling of unrealness, which feels a bit Disney-esque to me. I love the rose from Beauty and the Beast, even if it's a bit cliche. I also like a lot of old drawings and printed material from the beginning of the last century, which would have all kinds of ornamentation.

EB: How do the new vessels for the gallery celebrate a multi-sensory engagement?

VCS: When Jacqueline and I first spoke, she mentioned the idea of a vessel’s ability to hold perfume. So we thought about creating objects for oil and wine. I made a decanter and a carafe and this other object, which is called a ladro in Spanish or Italian. It's used when tasting wine and has a special shape to pipe out a small volume from the barrel.

EB: Your photographs of your glasses for Bottega Veneta also come to mind. How these objects get activated when they become containers for vivid-colored fluids or other materials.

VCS: Yes, that's part of the game! I think it will be interesting to see how the red wine will look in the carafe or the decanter. I like the idea that the objects are beautiful, but not so reassuring. I'm really obsessed with a sort of fantasy, something like an invented situation in a movie. Movies like Death Becomes Her, or others from that time, where there is always a special bottle with an evil liquid inside, which is always emerald green or bright purple. It's never neutral! I always like a bit of exaggeration. 

EB: I loved how you described those pieces as “malevolent”! Are there other words that you’re always returning to or thinking about?

VCS: That came from the evil witch in Snow White. I always thought she was beautiful, but also evil. This kind of ambiguity has become a model of working for me. I like when something doesn’t come across as reassuring, which is an idea that I always return to.

EB: What feels particularly important to you as a designer and human right now?

VCS: As a designer, when everything slowed due to COVID, I let go of having anxiety about constantly doing things. Now I’m less anxious, which is helping me work in a way that’s more daring, challenging, and deep. I would also like to be able to create something that takes even more time, but we will see if that relates to an object or a larger space.

As a person, I would be happy if we could try to overcome our anxieties. It feels like we all suffer a bit from this because of the things that are going on. I hope we can find a little peace as humans. And if the anxiety is inescapable, then I hope we can be aware of it and engage with it in a positive way.