Fondazione Ermanno Casoli announces the winner of the 24th edition of the Premio Ermanno Casoli, one of the most prestigious international awards dedicated to the relationship between art and business. This year’s prize has been awarded to Arianna Pace. The artist will create a site-specific artwork for the EMC FIME plant, a company within the Elica Group, which for over forty years has been dedicated to the production of electric motors for the heating, ventilation and household appliance markets. The project is curated by Marcello Smarrelli, the Foundation’s artistic director.
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.
