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In her artistic practice, Arianna Pace (Pesaro, 1995) explores the landscape as a cultural and perceptual construct, seeking connections between natural history and human presence. Her work, which bears a resemblance to an archaeological investigation, combines scientific rigour with an attention to cultural and material memory, giving rise to works that reflect a deep care for the local area and its surroundings.

EMC FIME is based in Castelfidardo, a town in the Marche region situated in a particularly rich environment, where nature, culture, craftsmanship and industry intertwine to create a unique landscape. Castelfidardo is also world-renowned for the manufacture of accordions, extraordinary instruments in which air ceases to be an invisible fluid and becomes a tangible substance which, once channelled and set into vibration, becomes sound.

In this context, Arianna Pace’s project will highlight just how central air and sound are to the company’s identity, particularly given its deep connection with the surrounding area. Through this approach, even the functional noise produced by the machines will be studied, manipulated and recomposed until it evolves into harmonic frequencies capable of generating a relaxing atmosphere and a profound sense of acoustic well-being. This parallel creates a fundamental cultural and productive bridge, in which industry and craftsmanship ultimately share the same vital principle, based on the movement and manipulation of air.

Marcello Smarrelli, director of the Ermanno Casoli Foundation and curator of the Prize, emphasised: “The Ermanno Casoli Prize promotes dialogue between art and business, highlighting the link between creativity and innovation in all the countries where Elica operates. Thanks to her research into the relationship between the environment and the community, Arianna Pace will collaborate with EMC FIME employees to create a work destined to have a profound impact on the company and the local area.”

As a hallmark of every edition of the Ermanno Casoli Prize, the artist will directly involve employees in the creation of a permanent work of art that will become part of the company’s collective heritage.

The artwork will be unveiled in October 2026 at the EMC FIME headquarters in Castelfidardo.

The workshop began with a hands-on phase, involving drawing and collage to design hybrid creatures, followed by the use of Artificial Intelligence as a speculative tool: not to produce images, but to analyse symbols and generate texts and new connections of meaning. The bestiary was thus transformed into a collective ecosystem, presented in an exhibition held on the company’s premises at the end of the day.
Barely Imaginary Beings is a large tent composed of thousands of tiles that forms a permanent symbolic bestiary, a synthesis of the creativity that emerged during the workshop.
The title of the work references Caspar Henderson’s book The Book of Barely Imagined Beings and evokes a sense of wonder at what in nature defies understanding. Whilst Henderson explores the biodiversity of our ecosystem, the workshop invited participants to investigate a ‘symbolic biodiversity’, using Artificial Intelligence not as an end in itself, but as a critical tool to expand expressive possibilities.

The programme alternated between theoretical and practical sessions, introduced by a talk open to all company staff, delivered by Numero Cromatico and Marcello Smarrelli on the collective’s research themes. Of particular note was the lecture by Alessandro Delpriori, a lecturer at the University of Camerino, dedicated to iconology and medieval bestiaries as pedagogical and moral tools, fundamental to understanding the relationship between Human Beings, Nature and Knowledge. Starting from the medieval tradition of filigree and bestiaries — tools capable of transforming the sign into a vessel of values and narratives — the participants constructed a personal and shared symbolic imagery, giving life to a bestiary of ‘barely imaginable beings’.

Esseri a malapena immaginabili (Barely imagined beings) is the result of work developed from the ideas that emerged during the workshop led by the Numero Cromatico collective as part of E -STRAORDINARIO, held on 3 and 4 March 2026 at the Elica headquarters in Fabriano, which involved managers and staff in a creative exploration aimed at connecting the region’s historical heritage with contemporary art and the new frontiers of Artificial Intelligence.

Drawing on the medieval tradition of filigree and bestiaries — tools capable of transforming the mark into a vessel of values and narratives — the participants constructed a personal and shared symbolic imagery, giving life to a bestiary of “barely imaginable beings”.

The event forms part of the programme for the latest edition of E-STRAORDINARIO, the Ermanno Casoli Foundation’s flagship project, which brings artists into the workplace to deliver training programmes in which contemporary art serves as a tool for learning, personal development and innovation.
The artist talk aims to provide an in-depth insight into and introduce the Elica Group and the local community to the Numero Cromatico collective, founded in Rome in 2011 and comprising researchers from the fields of visual arts, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy and design. At the heart of Numero Cromatico’s work lies the study of the mechanisms of perception, language and aesthetic experience, with a particular focus on the viewer’s experience. The group creates works, installations, experiences, publications and visual devices that aim to activate cognitive, sensory and emotional processes, going beyond the conventions of traditional art appreciation.

E-STRAORDINARIO is the Ermanno Casoli Foundation’s educational project, conceived and curated by Marcello Smarrelli, which since 2008 has been bringing contemporary art into the corporate world as an educational and methodological tool for corporate training. Through a series of workshops, internationally renowned artists work on the creation of a work of art alongside employees from the participating companies. The works produced form a ‘distributed museum’ involving all the companies that have collaborated with the FEC over the years.
Over the years, the initiative has seen the participation of over 20 artists, including Diego Marcon, Margherita Moscardini, Pietro Ruffo, Cesare Pietroiusti, Marinella Senatore and Nico Vascellari, as well as major multinational companies based in Italy such as Angelini Industries, the Sole 24 Ore Business School, Confindustria, Elica, Jungheinrich and MSD Italia.

E-STRAORDINARIO was awarded the 2014 Culture + Business Prize.

The Ermanno Casoli Foundation has a long-standing tradition of commissioning original greeting cards, a task entrusted this year to the artist Giovanni Termini.
His artistic practice explores the relationship between matter, form and space through installations that evoke work environments, construction sites and temporary structures. Using raw or pre-processed materials – such as iron, wood, plywood and concrete – Termini reworks everyday objects, removing them from their original context and transforming them into elements imbued with symbolic and poetic meaning.
In continuity with Dietro ai miei occhi, the title of the installation created by Termini for the eleventh edition of E-STRAORDINARIO for Kids, we find a reference to one of the artist’s iconic works: La Disciplina delle Eccezioni (2025).

A panic bar, which suggests a threshold but does not open anything, is fixed to a wall and incorporates a curved wooden strip. It is the same device that was given to the children as a prompt to explore, through play, what lies beyond a locked door or an impassable wall.
The threshold thus becomes a place of creativity where everyone can imagine whatever they wish, just as the children did when they depicted, using crayons, acrylics and various other materials, what lies ‘behind their own eyes’.
The door thus becomes a symbol of passage, of discovery and of the possibility of looking beyond what is visible, but also of the courage to face the unknown and the future.
Crossing the imaginary threshold suggested by the red enamelled door handle on the ticket reveals a quote from the American comedian Milton Berle: “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door”.
A wish that we may always find the strength, courage and humour to overcome obstacles through imagination, creativity and, why not, art.

The event is conceived as a dynamic, interdisciplinary discussion that brings together diverse experiences and perspectives on the power of play as an educational, creative and social tool.

The title references the famous essay by Eric Berne, the father of transactional analysis, and highlights how play is a tool capable of revealing relational dynamics, stimulating awareness and expanding creativity. According to the Dutch philosopher Johan Huizinga, in his famous essay Homo Ludens, culture itself arises from play. Art, from this perspective, is one of its highest manifestations: not only because it involves rules, rituals and symbolic frameworks, but because it implies ‘pretending’, a suspension of reality that allows us to express the inexpressible and reveal the invisible.

Through the perspectives of artists, cultural professionals and representatives from the business world, the discussion – moderated by Marcello Smarrelli, Artistic Director of the Ermanno Casoli Foundation – will feature Alfio Albani, President of the Chiaravalle Montessori Foundation, who will present the Montessori pedagogical perspective, according to which play is a conscious and formative process, an integral part of a child’s growth and identity development; Manuela Alessandrini, Head of the Education Department at the Omero State Tactile Museum, who will illustrate how play can be transformed into a sensory and inclusive experience through tactile art and creative workshops; Deborah Carè, Chief Human Resources Officer at Elica, who will explain how the use of the metaphor of play in corporate training is much more than a teaching methodology; it is a transformative approach that combines emotion, experience and learning: from co-creation activities with artists in projects promoted by the Ermanno Casoli Foundation, to gamification programmes for new recruits in which participants must manage a virtual company whilst tackling realistic problems in a controlled environment; Patrick Tuttofuoco, an artist who will demonstrate how play can become pure energy; indeed, his immersive, pop-inspired installations transform spaces into collective experiences reminiscent of the world of video games; finally, Saverio Verini, Director of the Civic Museums of Spoleto, who will explore the theme of childhood as a complex territory, a space of discovery and creativity, but also of anxieties and rules to be broken, explored by many contemporary artists through works of great intensity.

The event will also feature the screening of the video from the 11th edition of E-STRAORDINARIO for Kids, created in collaboration with the artist Giovanni Termini, which recounts the creation of Dietro ai miei occhi (Behind My Eyes), a collective work symbolising transition, discovery and the possibility of looking beyond what is visible.

The Ermanno Casoli Prize is one of the most prestigious international awards dedicated to the relationship between art and business, promoted by the Ermanno Casoli Foundation, an institution which, since 2007, has developed a method that brings contemporary art into companies as a tool for training and innovation. The works created for the Ermanno Casoli Prize arise from the shared creative process between artists and employees, becoming the heritage of the companies that have chosen to experiment with this method. Foremost among these is Elica, a leading Italian company in kitchen extractor systems and the main supporter of the FEC.

Curated by Marcello Smarrelli, Artistic Director of the Ermanno Casoli Foundation, the FEC Digital Collection takes the form of a fully-fledged museum, designed by the architectural firm Salottobuono and created in collaboration with Studio Visuale and Metaverso. This innovative project was the winner of the TOCC – Digital Transition for Cultural and Creative Organisations call for proposals, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture and funded by the European Union under the Next Generation EU programme.

The aim of the platform is to bring this scattered collection together in a single digital space, making it accessible to an ever-wider audience and overcoming physical limitations through the power of technology.

The FEC Digital Collection can be accessed from any device and is compatible with the main virtual reality headsets. Users can explore the works in an intuitive and interactive way through photographs, videos and audio content that trace each artist’s creative process. Thanks to 3D digitisation using Gaussian Splatting technology, visitors can enjoy an immersive experience with a selection of works.

Particular attention has been paid to accessibility: the platform includes filters to improve readability for people with visual impairments or colour blindness, subtitles that can be enabled in videos, content in LIS (Italian Sign Language), and is compatible with assistive technologies, ensuring an independent experience even for users who rely on navigation aids.

The FEC Digital Collection represents the natural evolution of the Ermanno Casoli Prize Museum 1998–2007, inaugurated in 2019 within the Santa Lucia Monumental Complex in Serra San Quirico (AN), which houses the works from the first ten editions of the Prize.

With the FEC Digital Collection, the Ermanno Casoli Foundation presents an innovative tool that reflects the latest museum theories and practices regarding the promotion and dissemination of contemporary art, bringing a unique artistic heritage into a new digital dimension that is accessible, barrier-free and open to all.

The collective exhibition, organised by Confindustria Ancona and the Ermanno Casoli Foundation and curated by Marcello Smarrelli, opened yesterday. The initiative brings together young people’s creativity, artistic heritage and business innovation.

The work is composed of 153 cement tiles, created under Piermattei’s guidance by over 150 young people (ages 15–18) from the Fabriano area, participants in Future Campus Fabriano — an educational program promoted by the Fabriano Territorial Committee of Confindustria Ancona, aimed at helping young people discover the region and its businesses, identify their talents, and navigate their future.

The project acts as a bridge between past and present, heritage and innovation, leaving a tangible trace of the educational experience lived by the students, and bearing witness to the deep connection between culture, entrepreneurship, and creativity that defines the Fabriano region.

INFO
Fabriano Industry
c/o BPER Banca, Piazza Giambattista Miliani 16, Fabriano
Tel. +39 071 29048279
Opening event: Wednesday, July 16 – 5:00 PM
Special opening: July 17–23, from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Regular hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:00 AM–1:00 PM / 4:00 PM–7:00 PM

“Inhalatorium” is a large-scale sculptural installation made of heterogeneous materials, designed and created together with the company’s employees, in line with the mission of Fondazione Ermanno Casoli, which has promoted dialogue between art and business since its establishment.

“Poniatowski’s project for the Elica Group Polska community — explains Marcello Smarrelli, Artistic Director of Fondazione Ermanno Casoli — is grounded in a core conviction central to the Foundation’s mission: to harness contemporary art as an educational and methodological tool capable of enhancing the workplace environment and sparking innovative processes. Inhalatorium is not merely an object to be contemplated, but a device that redefines the company’s social dimension, strengthening the sense of belonging and connection among its people. Over the years, we have carried out similar interventions in other Elica facilities and within other major multinational corporations, activating art as a catalyst for dialogue, exchange, and reflection. This new installation fully embraces and advances this trajectory, reinforcing Elica’s international vision and its unique approach to promoting art and its transformative potential for the benefit of the communities involved.” 

Read the press release.

In his artistic practice, Cezary Poniatowski transforms everyday objects and materials into sculptural compositions. Drawing inspiration from the histories, emotions, and memories linked to material culture, he creates works that feel both familiar and unsettling. “Poniatowski’s research reflects the ways perception shapes meaning—how we recognize familiar forms in abstract compositions and how materials tied to domestic or utilitarian functions carry cultural and emotional significance. This approach positions him among the most compelling voices in sculpture and spatial practice in Central Europe today” – affirms Jakub Gawkowski, co-curator of this edition of the Premio Ermanno Casoli.

In the words of Marcello Smarrelli, Artistic Director of Fondazione Ermanno Casoli, “The Premio Ermanno Casoli has always aimed to foster dialogue between art and business, using the universal language of art to inspire new perspectives and ways of thinking. We do this across all the countries where Elica operates, promoting its values globally and reinforcing the deep connection between creativity and innovation. Thanks to his artistic practice, which explores crucial issues such as the human condition and its relationship with technology and the environment, we are confident that Cezary Poniatowski’s contribution will have a profound and lasting impact on the company and its employees.”

Following this approach, Cezary Poniatowski has been invited to conceive a site-specific project for the Elica Group Polska plant. As is typical of the Premio Ermanno Casoli, employees will be directly involved in the creation of a permanent artwork. Poniatowski’s intervention will explore breath and inhalation—both as physiological processes and as metaphors for circulation, flow, and transformation. Engaging with Elica’s advanced technologies that regulate and enhance air saturation, the project will link those processes to the broader metabolic exchanges within individual and collective bodies.

The work will be inaugurated in June 2025 at the Elica Group Polska plant in Jelcz-Laskowice, Poland.

Read the press release.

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The project, curated by Marcello Smarrelli, promoted by the Municipality of Fabriano and conceived in collaboration with Fondazione Ermanno Casoli, is supported by PAC2022-2023 – Piano per l’Arte Contemporanea, promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture. 

Born in Turin (1936), Paolo Icaro is a key figure in the artistic researches of the 1960s. Closely connected to the Arte Povera movement, since the beginning he has experimented with the evolving nature of sculptural action in relation to form and space, using elemental and flexible materials such as concrete, clay, paper, wood, and plaster.  

Artificio naturale, created in 2011, perfectly reflects this ongoing research and experimentation. The installation consists of five stone boulders, simply laid on the ground. The sculptor first modeled an “ideal” stone in clay, smoothing it to resemble a perfect pebble, as if it had been shaped by the waters of a stream. From this original form, five plaster casts were created, then cast in cement, and finally, thanks to 3D scanning, sculpted in Matraia stone, a gray-blue material of exceptional compactness and durability. Although identical in shape, the five boulders appear different as they are placed in five unique positions where they achieve balance.

The project is accompanied by a series of public talks, educational workshops for children, and a book published by Chimera Editore, with texts by Marcello Smarrelli and Simone Ciglia.

INFO AND BOOKING:
0732.250658 | pinacoteca.molajoli@comune.fabriano.an.it

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Can you please introduce yourself and the story of we+?
we+ is a contemporary design studio founded in 2013 in Tokyo by Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando. Our mission is to create new perspectives and values through research and experimentation. Our projects stem from constant research both in Japan and abroad. Thanks to these experiences, we’ve had the privilege of collaborating with various companies and organizations, contributing to research and development projects, commissioned installations, branding, product ideation, spatial design, and art direction.

What distinguishes your daily work?
We value research and experimentation. We integrate logical thinking, such as analyzing the client’s history and social context, with a hands-on approach to fieldwork and material experimentation. Our goal is to explore new expressions and possibilities to achieve alternative designs.

Can you explain more about “Straordinaria”, the installation that you are exhibiting at Fuori Salone at Palazzo Litta?
“Straordinaria” is inspired by the delicate formation of ‘clouds’ caused by the collision of warm and cold air. The installation consists of countless translucent mesh fabric cylinders suspended from above, creating an ethereal flow of subtle shades in space. These cylinders, slightly colored in some sections, evoke sensations of ‘air’ and ‘heat.’ The experience will be akin to strolling through the clouds, inviting viewers to harmoniously merge with the surrounding environment and immerse themselves in the elegant interaction of ‘air’ and ‘heat,’ discovering a world of unique sensations.

How will the public be engaged in the installation?
This installation offers the public an engaging experience where colors surprisingly change depending on the viewing angle, location, and distance to the artwork. By altering these factors, viewers can appreciate a variety of expressions. Stepping into the pathway within the installation, surrounded by the artwork from all directions, will be like taking a walk through a vibrant cloud of colors.

What do you expect from this experience in Milan with Elica and Fondazione Ermano Casoli?
Through the immersive experience we’ve created, we aim for the rebranded concept of Elica to intuitively resonate with visitors. Furthermore, we are delighted that this collaboration serves as an opportunity to deepen our relationship with Fondazione Ermano Casoli too. 

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Elica, a key player in kitchens worldwide for over 50 years, in collaboration with Fondazione Ermanno Casoli, – which has been promoting exchange between contemporary art and businesses since its establishment -, presents Straordinaria, a poetic site-specific installation envisaged by the experimental Japanese design studio ‘we+’, founded by Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando in 2013, curated by Marcello Smarrelli. 

The project – expressing its ‘thinking outside the box’ aptitude, a pioneering approach in which creativity and innovation combine in the pursuit of beauty – invites the audience to immerse in an unexpected and magical ethereal space, by evoking the lightness of air and warmth, two distinctive natural elements of Elica world.

Straordinaria
Palazzo Litta – Cortile d’onore
Corso Magenta 24, Milano
Open to visitors: from Monday 15 to Sunday 21 April, 10.00 am  – 7.30 pm 

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In his artistic practice, Agostino Iacurci uses painting, sculpture, drawing, light and sound, heterogeneously combining various media to create immersive installations that intimately dialogue with places – visionary spaces in which stories, personal memories, literary references and vernacular tales freely converge. His large-scale pictorial interventions, which have earned him international fame, take the form of large painting interventions – an original reinterpretation of what is known as ‘talking architecture’.  

Starting from those considerations, Agostino Iacurci was invited to conceive a project for AIRFORCE’s new plant, which, as is typical of the Premio Ermanno Casoli, stems from a training need identified within the company in collaboration with the Human Resources department. After being acquired by Elica and seeing its headquarters transferred from Fabriano to Cerreto D’Esi, AIRFORCE needed to recreate the cohesion, energy and spirit of sharing that have always characterised it, but also to offer a welcoming and familiar place for its workers.  

The intervention will be the result of a series of actions that will start in May and will involve the entire company population – around 100 managers, employees and workers – without any hierarchical distinction, with the aim of transforming a large portion of the plant, which is currently used as a transit area, into a place for employees to rest and meet.  

With this message, which gets straight to the essence of things, Fondazione Ermanno Casoli together with the artist Claire Fontaine wishes a Merry Christmas.

The exhortation is to contrast the madness of the world by opposing it with the transformative gaze of children.

The drawings were realized by the children of Elica employees as part of the workshop “Gli animali scappati” (Runaway Animals), conceived for the ninth edition of E-STRAORDINARIO for Kids by Claire Fontaine, curated by Marcello Smarrelli.

The young participants were asked to draw their favorite animals, whether real or fantastic, imagining a daring escape from the illustrated books to the large white sheet passing through the heads of the artists “always open, like a door without key”.

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Claire Fontaine’s new luminous installation entitled IL PERSONALE was conceived for the most iconic location of Elica’s Fabriano headquarters, stemming from the reflections generated during the workshop Lavoro femminile visibile e invisibile, attended by a group of 30 women who hold managerial roles within the company. In the light of some fundamental concepts of feminism –that the artistic duo has been exploring since its beginnings – the participants were asked to express themselves on the theme of female empowerment, with the aim of highlighting their difficulties in reconciling work and family.

The artwork thus becomes a reflection on the status of women in the professional and social context, bringing to light their value and emphasizing the importance of a broader political vision to promote equality and respect for women’s rights as transformative agents of society. 

Project supported by Regione Marche – Assessorato alla Cultura

[Read the press release]

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