Nordic Table Design – Faenza MIC, Italy

The exhibition “Nordic Table Design. A Silent Women’s Revolution (1900-1970)” curated by Fabia Masciello aims to present about forty-five female designers, artists, and intellectuals from the period between 1900 and 1970, telling a new history of design, made up of multiple voices, against the backdrop of the struggle for equal rights.

It traces the work and working conditions of these women who, with a humanistic and distinctively feminine approach to design and a firsthand knowledge of domestic needs, achieved a “silent revolution” in the way the table was conceived and, more generally, in women’s lives.

They redesigned plates, glasses, pots and pans and cutlery, making them more functional and economical without ever sacrificing beauty; they experimented with new materials, colors and shapes, following the principle of the Modern Movement in which “form follows function.”

A large number of high-quality artistic pieces, some in production loaned by companies, some historical pieces from private collections and museums, describe the creative activity and working conditions of seventy years of women’s tableware design.

There is a special connection with the Faenza Prize, International Competition of Ceramic Art: from 1964 to 1974, there was an active section dedicated to industrial design, with honor prizes, gold medals from the President of the Republic, the Senate and the House.

Many Nordic manufactures with women designers participated consistently: among them numerous awards were presented to Grete Ronning, Marianne Westman, Rut Bryk, Hertha Bengtson to name a few of the better known names. These award-winning artifacts are part of MIC Faenza’s collection and will be displayed in a special section of the exhibition.

This exhibition aims to retrace a pivotal moment in European design, the Faenza connection, through silent unavoidable protagonists.