Giuseppe Semeraro guest at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli
From student of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli to creative director in Mexico: Giuseppe Semeraro was a guest at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli.
The students of the third course of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli had the opportunity to follow a one-week internship (from 12 to 16 December 2022) with the mosaicist Giuseppe Semeraro who added further design and management skills to their training.
Giuseppe Semeraro was a student of the School in the late 1990s and then a mosaic and terrazzo teacher from 2001 to 2007 before embarking on a brilliant career in Mexico. Today, in Cuernavaca, he is the art director of the large company Mosaicos Venecianos de México, a company founded after the war, which has over 400 employees and deals with mosaics at all levels, from the very production of the materials to the installation, obviously without neglecting conception and design.
Precisely starting from his experience that also intertwines organizational and coordination aspects, Giuseppe Semeraro wanted to develop a project with the students that put the School at the center and in particular its external space, which is undergoing renovation. Therefore, an opportunity to think about an area that needs to be furnished and find new character now that the city center and elements such as the high decorated flue and the large circular work for the hundred years can be easily reached from the entrance to the School of the School are recognized and evident signs in the urban context.
The importance of transmitting the activity that takes place in the School’s laboratories to the outside world also did not escape the students: an osmosis between inside and outside since the art of mosaic finds no expressive or conservative limits. Maestro Semeraro therefore urged the students to formulate proposals for the outdoor space, inviting them to draw up projects that addressed all those aspects that an entrepreneur must keep in mind. Therefore, not just a creative exercise, but a broader reflection that envisaged the calculation of times and resources, the evaluation of human and technical qualities, the specifications of the materials, the costs, up to the execution of samples and prototypes. Topics such as reuse, sustainability, greenery, functionality, adaptability…
The various solutions presented focused on furnishings where the mosaic becomes the distinctive element not only for decorative purposes, but also as a motif that unites, which connects all the structures and external artistic signs. Projects characterized by modular seats and furniture for the creation of conversation areas with plants and tables where vertical and horizontal shapes harmonize with the severe lines of the school building and the workmanship, colors and materials of the mosaic surfaces recall what is already visible . A series of projects for the “courtyard” of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli which considered parameters and production times according to standards that Semeraro tested in the field.
An open and heartfelt sharing, that of Semeraro, which the students appreciated, a way of gratefully returning to the School that wealth of values and skills which have been the basis of its professional fortune.
20 December 2022
