Giuliana Califano
Giuliana Califano is an Italian artist, designer, researcher, and educator working at the intersection of ceramics, sculpture, biomaterials, and digital fabrication. Her artistic practice combines traditional craftsmanship with contemporary technologies, exploring material transformation through experimentation with sustainable and biodegradable materials. Her research investigates ceramics, biocomposites, and biomaterials, questioning how new material ecologies can reshape our understanding of art, design, permanence, and decay. She has conducted research at the Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials (IPCB-CNR) in Italy, held a research fellowship at IUAV University of Venice, and currently teaches technical and artistic drawing in Rome.
During her residency at Öres, Giuliana intends to experiment with seaweed and other organic residues found on Örö Island, combining these local materials into biodegradable sculptural objects. The project draws inspiration from the island's remarkable transformation over time: from grazing land, to a strategic military base occupied by different armed forces—including Finnish, Swedish, and Russian—and finally to its current identity as a protected nature reserve rich in flora and fauna.
Through a process of exploration, listening, and living alongside the island's inhabitants and elements, Giuliana seeks to investigate how these successive layers of history, transforming the space, take shape in a continuous process of rematerializing the temporal landscape.
THANKS
The travel of Giuliana to Örö Island was supported by ÖRES Residency and Koyne Program.