CCONTINUA + MAMT

Chiara Caselli and Francesco Carrasso, two Italian creatives based in Amsterdam, launched their project CCONTINUA + MAMT in 2021 after a spontaneous collaboration sparked something unexpected. Caselli was working as an interior architect and designer when she decided to start taking ceramics classes as a way to relax and stretch her creative sensibility. Carrasso is a painter, illustrator and landscape designer with a very free-flowing style that can be ritual-like in its movement and patterning. On a whim, Caselli gave Carrasso two newly made ceramic plates and told him to do whatever he wanted to it. When he brought it back, he had made drawings across its surface with the phrase: ‘The sun, the moon, all blue.’ Something clicked in that moment, their complimentary styles and approach to making felt like something fresh. Caselli applied to Edit Napoli and they were invited to show in the emerging designers category in the 2021 edition. They presented their first small collection of ‘tattoo plates’, and ended up winning third place in the ‘Emerging Designers Under 30:Seminario,’ section of the fair. “It was the right time for this product and our styles were working well together,” the two designers explain. “It was a nice contamination and collaboration. I work minimally, with simple, clean lines and forms and Francesco brings a more hand-on approach, yet also a delicate drawing style. It’s a good mix of feminine and masculine energies. It was all very spontaneous and it moved fast,” explains Caselli.  “Chiara is very good at bringing ideas to the next level – which is the opposite of how I work, so it is a good compliment,” notes Carrasso.

Both artists were still working full time but it was the beginning of CCONTINUA + MAMT as an official project. For Edit Napoli 2022, they decided to scale up – both in terms of size and dimension as well as in terms of the material. “Ceramic is our main medium of expression but it is more about our approach and about the storytelling that we wanted to see applied to different objects or materials or be an abstract experience,” says Caselli. “With that in mind, we wanted to show a different kind of project – we wanted to transport the visitor into another dimension, to create an environment without boundaries.” Titled Ode to the moon, the installation included mirrors, fragrance, large vases and tapestries. “The idea was to express more of our personal language.” That year, they won the major recognition award in the main fair. “The jury described it as “an original work in which word and design become widespread narratives through a stubbornly personal language,” Caselli notes, with a smile.

After doing a weeklong residency in the Rif, in Morocco, in 2024, Caselli felt that for their research, it would be interesting to add other influences or ‘contaminations’ as they describe it, such as learning techniques from other places and using local materials. They were invited through Isola to be part of a residency project in Saudi Arabia, founded by a local art collector. The brief was to design a series of light fixtures that blend both Saudi and Italian cultures. Through her out-of-the-box research and determination, Caselli found herself working in Jeddah for three weeks with a family-run commercial ceramics workshop located nearly one hour outside of the city, off of the road that leads to Mecca. The workshop produces mostly the large ceramic amphora that are used to collect water or as decorative outdoor pots. It is run by a multi-generational Egyptian family, all men, who had never worked with a designer or anyone from the outside before. After a slow start, the experience was transformative for Caselli, and likely the ceramicists as well. Using google translate and her own drawings, they began working together to create a series of ceramic light fixtures, something completely outside of the artisans usual day-to-day. “When I arrived at this place – they work with such different techniques and the clay is completely different  – so I needed to adapt to their way. It’s not like in Europe, where the artisans have their nice shops or a master craftsman, here it was totally different.” Out in the middle of nowhere, there was a huge mountain of broken pots, little shelter, with four stations spinning pots all day long. “Slowly we adapted to each other. They were laughing at me decorating the vases or when Francesco arrived with his air compressor to paint onto the surface. It was very interesting to experience; the passion for the material, the clay being a universal language. It was the glue that connected us. It was very emotional…they became like family by the end. They were such good souls – doing everything to help us.”  The project, Harara, is a series of totemic, sculptural clay forms, decorated with their personal symbology such as hearts, moons, curving lines and poetic phrases. Some of the ceramic forms have Korean paper lanterns for a soft and subtle light which evokes the mystery and beauty of the desert landscapes. The lights were featured in the Islamic Arts Biennale (January 25-May 25, 2025).

Today, Caselli is devoting herself fully to CCONTINUA + MAMT, and the pair have exhibited in Collectible, Paris Design Week, Lake Como Design Fair and Milan, where they just presented new work in two exhibitions: “Dal mare non vedo che cieli” and “Can You Imagine,” a group show presented at Rossana Orlandi by Secondome curated by Federica Sala.

Storytelling is always at the root of each of CCONTINUA + MAMT’s projects. Personal mythologies mixed with experiences and unexpected inspirations give the work this layer of intuition, instinct and freedom, which makes it unique. As Caselli shares, “For us, this is the way to make pieces that are true, believable and representing something real of its time and place – of its place.”