As early as the morning of the 26 August 2026, opening day: the program gets underway in Vietri sul Mare-Raito, at the spectacular Ceramiche Liguori studio owned by Lucio Liguori, where the ’Workshop & Masterclass – Live Creation & Masterclass” was held: Pinching Sculpture Class & Monumental Work for CIBUM—led by Master Naidee Changmoh (Thailand). A large group of artists participating in the festival watched with great enthusiasm as the monumental sculpture dedicated to CIBUM was created live; the work will be donated to the city of Cava de’ Tirreni.     

The August 27, theme day – Community, Sea, and Participation – also in Vietri sul Mare. In the morning, a tour of the historic workshops took place, led by Elisabetta D’Arienzo and featuring firsthand accounts from the owners of the Vietri sul Mare ceramics companies. Visit to Ceramiche Scotto in Molina di Vietri with Isadora Mariani, followed by a visit to Solimene Ceramics with Giancarlo Solimene.    

 This is what Elisabetta D’Arienzo reports: the “Ceramica Vietri Scotto tells its story through the voice of Isadora Mariani, who traces the most important milestones in the company’s founding and growth, but above all highlights its ability to infuse a process as ancient as Vietri ceramics with a personal touch. Technique, culture, and passion blend together, giving rise to a unique and special result.”

“Ceramica Solimene, famous worldwide for its decorations and Soleri’s impressive architecture, becomes an intimate and familiar story thanks to the memories of Giancarlo Solimene. The history, tradition, and resilience of one of the most iconic families in Vietri ceramics, which even today keeps pace with the times, carrying on a tradition that continues to evolve without losing its identity.”

On the afternoon of 27, at Punzi Palace  the TALK “Community Projects” On the social and therapeutic value of artistic craftsmanship, she further confirmed the importance of creative clay work as a tool for social inclusion, as well as a means of fostering personal growth and providing economic support, particularly for women. There were numerous presentations: via video link from Sardinia, Stefania Spanedda presented a cooperation project promoted by the Municipality of Casal Borgone—with which she collaborated—held in Senegal at the Casa Bio training center. The project was aimed at a group of women who practice traditional pottery according to their ancient traditions but without the use of decoration. The training program was designed to provide the knowledge and skills needed for ceramic decoration using techniques suitable for the local context, with the goal of expanding the product range offered by the group of Senegalese women involved, for whom ceramics are already a source of livelihood.

Mana Dowlatshahi Yeganeh, a gallery owner at Diaco Art—an organization that supports artists and fosters opportunities for artistic exchange and intercultural dialogue—shared insights into the Iranian art scene and its current dramatic situation. Mana presented the Franco-Iranian group exhibition “Bread and Blood,” which was, in fact, notably absent from this Festival; excerpts from her remarks are provided below.

 “Due to the current situation in Iran, unfortunately these artists were unable to be here with us today, and their works could not travel with them…. But we didn’t want their absence to mean that their voices were absent. We have therefore chosen to share their work through a video, which allows us to discover their artistic practices, their ideas, and their worlds…….. Art can become a language of memory, a language of resistance, and, at times, simply a way of saying: we are still here….”

The title, too “Bread and Blood” refers to this idea.

Bread can symbolize life, sharing, survival, and everyday existence.

Blood can evoke sacrifice, loss, violence, revolution, and resistance.       

Dorna Abyak, curator of “Bread and Blood,” then read a moving reflection of her own on this installation that never came to be. Another contribution to the discussion on the Iranian art scene came from Shohreh Haghighi, who spoke about her work as a ceramic artist and how her professional and creative experience supports her inner life and individual awareness.

Supriya Manon Meneghetti, one of the guests of honor from the Indian delegation attending this year’s festival and director of the ceramics studio at Maroma and Gallery MAJI in Auroville (India), reiterates what has emerged regarding the intimate connection that ceramics fosters between mind and body.

”….. For me, ceramics has been a physical, mental, and spiritual experience. It’s physical because it requires movement and action. We move our arms, our hands, our whole body…. There are millions of steps that intertwine to create a single vase, and every single step is important. And then there’s the spiritual aspect: our personal growth, our thoughts, and our inner journey through this life experience…..”

Another aspect of community projects was then discussed by Angeliki Papadopoulou, the teacher in charge of the Ceramics Workshop at the K.D.A.P. m. E.A. Center of the Municipality of Pella in Greece. “To mark the 25th anniversary of our Center, we designed and carried out a series of symbolic initiatives to raise social awareness. Our goal was to inform, encourage reflection, and help change the stereotypes that still surround people with disabilities.”

“Look at me” (2019–2020) “Listen to me” (2022–2023) “Touch Me” (2024–2026) the three different initiatives implemented over time as a way to raise social awareness and challenge the stereotypes surrounding people with disabilities.

The third activity focuses on touch, the oldest and most fundamental form of communication: “Touch Me” It was held for the first time at the MATRES Festival in Cava de’ Tirreni in August 2024, together with the talented young people from Pandora Ability, artists, and numerous visitors.

“A small piece of clay preserved the imprint of two people’s gesture. A simple gesture that became a trace of an irreplaceable moment: an encounter, a connection, a human bond…A few months later, the Friends of the Pella Archaeological Museum invited us to recreate this experience inside the museum.” 

The numerous events that took place culminated in the International Ceramics Exhibition “Touch Me”. Here, for the first time in Greece, works by people with disabilities were exhibited alongside those of artists and academics from Greece, China, Japan, Thailand, India, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, England, and the Netherlands. The works were not simply displayed side by side. They touched one another, engaged in dialogue, and interacted, giving rise to new works born from their mutual relationship. A single expressive realm, where diversity becomes the source of dialogue, encounter, and inclusion.

In closing, the remarks by Borish Boumediene—an Algerian master ceramist, translated by Elena Agosti, who has been active on multiple fronts for years and is dedicated to providing ceramics training to women, children, and people with disabilities—further confirmed the value of ceramics in the social sphere.

The tour of Vietri continues on the morning of August 28, theme day: Memory and Universal Language with Sandrina Mihalache and the Workshop – Cucuteni Pottery: Form, Symbol, and Ritual -. The workshop was held at Mara D’Arienzo’s Bottega 5 Creative Hub (Via XXV Luglio 5), in collaboration with the Municipality of Vietri sul Mare. Sandrina Mihalanche, an artist born in Cucuteni (Romania), introduced this ancient and fascinating ceramic tradition, one of the most refined and expressive ceramic cultures of prehistoric Europe. The workshop, inspired by this Neolithic culture (5th–3rd millennium B.C.), focused on creating plates with feet and altar-like shapes, inspired by the ritual objects and symbolic forms of Cucuteni. The forms created draw on those of the Archaic period, which evoked ideas of offering, protection, and rituals, closely linked to the feminine and sacred realms. After a brief theoretical introduction to the forms, symbols, and spiral motifs characteristic of Cucuteni pottery, a hands-on session followed in which participants worked with clay using hand-building techniques (without a potter’s wheel) and decorated their pieces with natural engobes inspired by the traditional color palette.

Photo credit: Photo by Paolo Celentano.

Photographs by Amalia Ferrigno, Robbie Mazzaro, Stefania Spanedda, Supriya Meneghetti, Angeliki Papadopoulou, Ljubica Lovrencic, and Giovanna D’Ausilio.