THE MICHELANGELO FOUNDATION’S GLOBAL CRAFT NETWORK
While the biennial in Venice serves as a concentrated physical anchor, the Michelangelo foundation extends its reach year-round through the Homo Faber Guide. With a network of over 100 partner institutions, the digital directory maps master artisans, ateliers, and independent makers across more than 50 countries and six continents. Instead of keeping craft siloed within regional markets, the platform allows contemporary designers, architects, and collectors to locate, contact, and commission work directly from global creators. For Cavalli, expanding this network is about recognizing specific, localized knowledge. ‘Everywhere we go we try to give value to the local genius loci, to the spirit of the place that represents the true soul and identity of the territories,’ he says, ‘that the master artisans know how to express in the purest and most authentic way.’
This digital network materializes on the ground through the Homo Faber in Città program, which runs parallel to the main event. Throughout September, local Venetian workshops featured on the online guide open their studio doors directly to the public. Using interactive itineraries provided on the foundation’s platform, visitors can look past the central exhibition halls to navigate Venice’s working craft ecosystem.
Caterina Roma, artisan, and Mili Couto, fellow | image ©Mar Puig Soler
BUILDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR TOMORROW’S ARTISANS
Connecting these global makers is only part of the equation; ensuring their trades remain economically viable requires heavy social infrastructure. An economy geared toward rapid turnover constantly threatens the slow, methodical transmission of knowledge. To counter this, the foundation developed the Homo Faber Fellowship, a program that funds international mobility by placing young talents inside a master artisan’s workshop for six months of rigorous, on-the-job training. ‘With the homo Faber Fellowship, as anticipated, we give a concrete help to both artisans who want to transmit their knowhow, and to young talents who want to start working but still have to learn,’ Cavalli says. ‘We offer them real opportunities and many advantages, like the one-month masterclass dedicated to ameliorating their knowledge of finance, intellectual property, design, etc. Skills that will be fundamental for their future activities.’
This investment in the next generation carries directly onto the floor of the biennial through the Young Ambassadors program. During the exhibition, promising design and applied arts students relocate to Venice, living together as a community for a month. They act as the public-facing voices of the event, guiding visitors through the installations and explaining the complex techniques behind the objects. Cavalli views this direct engagement as a crucial tool for keeping young creatives in the industry. Immersing them in the event, he explains, allows them ‘to understand how powerful is the love that people have for craft and for human talent.’
Simone Crestani, artisan | image © Alberto Parise
CRAFT AS PHYSICAL NECESSITY IN AN AUTOMATED AGE
For the Michelangelo Foundation, craft isn’t just about preserving the past, it’s a physical necessity. Even as digital processes dominate modern manufacturing, the friction between a maker and raw material remains fundamental to our humanity. Cavalli points to French critic Henri Focillon to explain this, noting that hands are ‘the most precious instruments of knowledge and understanding.’ The tactile act of shaping materials is an innate drive. It allows us to project our identities into our environments, turning a generic space into a home. ‘When the hands touch the material, we are allowed to look into the future,’ Cavalli explains, ‘because we can “see” what that material can become, how our talent can transform it, how our senses can be awaked and empowered by the direct encounter with the materials.’
This physical reality separates high craftsmanship from standard industrial output. While machines easily achieve flawless, uniform execution, they lack intent. True artisanal excellence requires more than just technical precision, it needs an underlying soul. ‘A cold and merciless efficiency is not a synonym of artisanal excellence: many machines can achieve it,’ Cavalli says. A master acts as the refined interpreter of a project. To possess a valuable material memory, he insists, an object ‘must be made with joy and purpose, on top of ability and knowhow.’
Gabriela de Sagarminaga, artisan | image via the Michelangelo Foundation © all rights reserved
This mindset directly shapes how the foundation approaches the collision of ancient techniques and modern digital fabrication. They don’t reject new tech, instead, they view it as an instrument that must be consciously managed by the ‘thinking hand.’ Applied correctly, digital tools eliminate exhausting labor and save resources, buying artisans time to focus on their specialized techniques. But technology is never neutral. ‘The intelligent hand is what moves everything, and if technology can give it a more efficient amplitude it’s a perfect evolution of the history of tools,’ Cavalli asserts. ‘But if technology turns us into odd tools, deprived of any intuition and taste, then we think that Homo Faber can propose a way to re-install human talent at the centre of the conversation.’