The Venice Glass Week 2025
The Venice Glass Week 2025
Contando Storie…tra vetro carta e tessuto
Franco Schiavon Gallery presents NARRATRAME e Gabriella Marin
Curated by Serena Andreucci and Silvia Pichi
Franco Schiavon Gallery #15
Fondamenta dei Vetrai 26, 30141, Murano – Venezia
FINISSAGE: 20 September 2025, h. 6.00pm (RSVP HERE)
From 13 to 20 September 2025
Opening Hours: 11.00am – 5.00pm
Free Entry
Languages: Italy, English, French, Spanish, Japanese
To count is to tell a story. To count is to thread, one after another, the glass beads that for centuries have shone in the hands of Murano’s artisans. “Contando Storie” is an event that intertwines past and present, giving voice to three ancient arts of Venetian tradition – glass canes, cotton rag paper, and fabric – once central to the Renaissance Venetian economy, today silent guardians of a fragile and precious beauty.
On the occasion of The Venice Glass Week 2025, the historic seed beads from the storerooms of the Franco Schiavon Gallery, located in sixteenth-century palaces along Fondamenta dei Vetrai, come alive in the contemporary design of the vezzi (necklaces) by Narratrame and in the dresses by Gabriella Marin.
Guided by master glassmaker Franco Schiavon, who has transformed his father Alfio’s legacy into an international realty, the gallery is now a workshop where different skills and bold ideas come together.
The elongated layout of the furnace and the sculpture by Napoleone Martinuzzi, who once lived here, stand as witnesses and echoes of the glass cane production that, between the 19th and 20th centuries, also served the making of seed beads. It was precisely in these spaces that Luigi Morassi’s workshop was located, a company specialized in working glass canes and crafting seed beads—an exquisite technical expertise that turned glass into tiny tales of light, destined to travel the world.
In a context not always open to experimentation, collaborating with artists and designers becomes a revolutionary act. It generates new languages, renews traditions, and builds bridges between past and future: the pursuit of excellence shines a light on the unique creations of two contemporary brands. Thus glass meets the handmade cotton paper of Narratrame and the models of Gabriella Marin; Contando Storie is born.
This event is an invitation to rediscover the applied arts as great narratives, threads that connect generations, material, and languages. Venice, a city of layered memories, does not forget: what has been remains alive in places, objects, and hands. Contando Storie is our way of listening to them, telling them, and letting them count once again.
NARRATRAME.
Silvia Pichi and Fernando Masone create vezzi (necklaces) drawing on their experience in the artisan craft of hand‑loomed cotton paper, shaping new languages within the contemporary design of the artist’s jewel. In their Venice atelier, layers of paper combined with dyes and mixed techniques form microcosms they call pearls. The deckled edge of the paper and the glass express a natural union in their hands. To live the skin of paper and the paper on the skin is an alchemy that becomes a necklace—worn and always unique.
Praised by critics, they have been featured, among others, at the Museo del Bijou in Castelmaggiore (2023), Fashion Paris Jewels and Watches (2024), and Roma Jewelry Week (2023–24–25).
A fashion designer and pattern maker, she sews poetic garments using simple fabrics and glass details—embroideries of memory and light. Her tailoring expertise weaves together a design guided by both ethics and aesthetics. A careful search for materials leads her to work with a wide range of fabrics, from natural fibers such as mint to a selection of brocades that make each piece unique. Entirely handmade, every model is inspired by the thread that defines its character, while the seed beads reshape its meaning.
Among her many appearances, she took part in Venice Fashion Week (2019) and collaborated with designer Tiziano Guardini for Milan Fashion Week (2020).
Contando Storie… Beyond the Exhibition | Reception
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 – 6:00 PM
Free admission, reservation recommended
After a week of silent contemplation, Contando Storie is ready to transform: for this special event, beads, necklaces, fabrics, and glass canes will come to life in a completely reimagined, immersive, and storytelling environment.
It will be a unique occasion where materials—until now objects of observation—will become subjects of narration. Invisible voices will intertwine, giving back to matter its deepest soul, woven from gestures, stories, and memories.
We invite you to be part of this one‑of‑a‑kind moment: a rite of passage between exhibition and experience, between object and subject, between those who look and those who take part.
A meeting, a sharing, a collective creation. Join us as we celebrate together the grand finale of this journey.
✨ A closing toast will follow
Chiostro SS. Cosma e Damiano, Giudecca 621/F, VE
www.narratrame.com
info@narratrame.com
+ 39 338 918 8417
@narratrame (Instagram)
www.ideaginger.it/progetti/shealth-vestire-il-benessere.html
gianlucazanella67@gmail.com
+39 329 212 8280
@gabriellamarin.it (Instagram)
The Venice Glass Week is the international festival, established in 2017, that the city of Venice dedicates to the art of glassmaking—an artistic and economic activity for which the lagoon city has been renowned worldwide for over 1,000 years. The ninth edition of the festival will take place from 13 to 21 September 2025.
The Venice Glass Week is promoted and organized by the City of Venice, the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, LE STANZE DEL VETRO – Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, and the Consorzio Promovetro Murano.
For further information, please visit www.theveniceglassweek.com.
Picture credits:
We would like to thank the communication staff of NARRATRAME for providing special pictures for our event.
“Silvia Pichi e Fernando Masone” by Paolo Gebri
“Rose” by Matteo Chinellato – Chinellatophoto.it
“Madame Butterfly” by Gianluca Zanella
