The mosaic winner of the 2024 Gonano Prize in Maniago
The winning mosaic of the fourth edition of the Nemo Gonano Award, established by the Maniago-Spilimbergo Rotary Club in collaboration with the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, is exhibited in the Municipality of Maniago. The official delivery to the mayor Umberto Scarabello took place at the end of December 2024, in the municipal council room, in the presence of the president Marco Castellarin and some members of the Maniago-Spilimbergo Rotary Club, the president Stefano Lovison and the director Gian Piero Brovedani of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, as well as several representatives of the Municipality of Maniago.
The award, created to honor and remember the figure of Nemo Gonano, a scholar and man active in institutions especially in the social, educational and cultural fields, links the Rotarian club to the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli. In fact, among the numerous offices and roles held by Gonano there were also those of member and president of the Maniago-Spilimbergo Rotary Club and president of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli from 1994 for about a decade, a period in which the School implemented great changes necessary to update the mosaicist’s skills to the demands of the job market and contemporary taste. From these biographical references and from the attention and care that Gonano has always shown towards the training of the young generations, a cash prize was conceived to be awarded to a student of the second course of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli who distinguished himself in technical and expressive execution of the end-of-year essay.
Now in its fourth edition, the prize for 2024 was awarded to the student Valeriia Radchenko, of Ukrainian origin, who created the face of an angel, specifically of a seraph, in Byzantine style, with natural materials and enamels, including in which the gold tiles stand out which give the subject hieraticity and religiosity.
The celestial figure, inspired by the work of a Russian mosaic artist that Radchenko wanted to pay homage to, will be exhibited for a year in the Municipality of Maniago, a place that adds to an imaginary journey that aims to remember the institutional profile of Nemo Gonano, his commitment to communities and the regional territory. In 2021, at the first edition of the award, the winner was the abstract mosaic panel by the Mantuan student Chiara Fornasari hosted in the municipality of Montereale Valcellina; the following year it was the Regional Council in Trieste that welcomed the three-dimensional mosaic symbol of life and eternity of the student Margherita Toffolo; in 2023 the face of the Byzantine Madonna created by the Romagna pupil Corinna Bizzocchi was placed in the municipality of Prato Carnico, the birthplace of Nemo Gonano.
With the mosaic angel winner of this latest edition of the award we touch upon another important center of western Friuli, Maniago, which is a point of reference for the Rotary Club which created the Nemo Gonano Award and the center of another excellence, that of fruit cutlery, like the art of mosaic, the evolution of an artisanal knowledge capable of looking beyond regional borders.
The mayor of Maniago Umberto Scarabello, the president of the Maniago-Spilimbergo Rotary Club Marco Castellarin, the student Valeriia Radchenko, for the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli the president Stefano Lovison and the director Gian Piero Brovedani (Maniago Municipality, 21 December 2024).
January 7, 2025
