In a grain of sand I see a town represents a scale model of the industrial tile-making town of Casalgrande, Italy. The project explores the links between industrial environments, dimensional scales and the displaced nature of production endemic to the region.
The factories involved in the fabrication of porcelain stoneware tiles serve as the town's fulcrum. Combining scale models with field recordings of different phases of tile production, the installation reveals infrastructural relationships that tether production environments to sites of extraction. Through an analysis of the systemic processes of tile manufacturing, Giulia considers the tile not only as an architectural artefact, but additionally as a symbol representing the connections between a multitude of local and global sites.




Casalgrande’s tile surfaces are characterised by the simulation of
globally sourced materials such as wood, marble and stone in different scales. By manipulating the aesthetics of the tile, the factories generate an illusionary material, which the project aims to reveal.
These simulated materials obfuscate the actual resources and production-processes of the tiles’ manufacturing.
By modifying the scale of the landscape’s elements of the town relative to one another through the use of Casalgrande’s tiles as modules of material narration, Giulia has constructed a replica in extremo of her hometown. Obscured scenarios and landscapes intrinsic to the factories are manifest, generating an altered topology that is an honest expression of the continuation of extractive and estranging infrastructures of production.




The project has been realised in collaboration with Casalgrande Padana︎︎︎, a factory involved in the production of ceramic tiles.

Materials
wood, rubber, metal, porcelain stoneware, plaster

Dimensions
L: 220cm W:320cm H: 120cm

Exhibitions
(2023) Graduation Show Design Academy Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven

Awards
(2023) Nominee for Gijs Bakker Award





©2024 – Giulia Braglia