Ceramics on the water
Confluenze | Where the river flows through Montelupo
The production is available only in Italian.
Ceramics on the water is part of Confluenze, a project of investigation and sound narration of the Arno river and of the territories that it flows through along its course towards the sea. By collecting voices, testimonies and field recordings, Confluenze recreates a heterogeneous portrait of Montelupo Fiorentino.
Featuring
The history of Montelupo ceramics speaks of technological innovations and circulation of knowledge: it was in the past, it is today.
How much its development is linked to the Arno is a question that concerns the wider economic, ecological and infrastructural system to which the river has contributed to shaping up. The Arno was a busy highway long before the Italian arterial roads were paved and long before its bottoms were dredged to build the Autosole motorway. The Arno was a vector of development and a complex system of social and economic relations. Without the Arno, Montelupo would never have made the leap in the production of ceramics.
Thanks to the contributions of some experts who know the subject very well - from the second-generation ceramist to the scientist who experiments with new ceramic pigments for the space industry, from the archaeologist to the naval carpenter who grew up on the banks of the Arno - we follow a history of at least eight centuries.