1.The Perfect House Has Become a Ruin – On Lavoirs, 2023, Amsterdam, NL Self-published book
An invitation, a publication, a collaborative approach to question the hierarchy between the act of making and cleaning. With contributions by Sasha van Aalst, Ola Korbańska, Francesca Lucchitta, Francesco Emilio Restuccia, Lisa Rovner, Vida Rucli, Giulia Soldati, Antonio Vincenzo Sotgiu and Yelizaveta Strakhova.
This is the first project to be published under ‘Blooming’. A blooming venture willing to investigate the notions of publishing, sharing, seasonal crafts and their methodologies. Initiated by Sasha van Aalst, Elena Braida and Francesca Lucchitta in early spring 2023.
Designed by me and Francesca Lucchitta, 1st edition 250 copies.
Cover Design by Cleïs Lou Vandam, printed in risograph by Terry Bleu, Amsterdam, NL Book printed in offset by Kaboem, Amsterdam, IT
At the moment the book is available for pick-up in Amsterdam and at San Serriffe (Amsterdam, NL), IZBA (Topolove, IT), Habitat (Tredozio, IT), Libreria Tarantola (Udine, IT).
EU info distribution and shipping will follow up soon.
For any direct purchases or questions, please write a mail.
2.Lavoir, Wash Houses project reader, 2023, Amsterdam, NL Graphic design – reader for personal use
The reader delves into the necessity to put maintenance, reproductive labours and care at the forefront of architectural discourses and heritage discussion. I learnt that conflictual matters within one public space and consequently our behaviour can be drastically sensitised through the investigation of its inhabitant, its rituals and, most importantly, its communal domains. I believe the infrastructure of the lavoir will then serve as a framework to unfold dialogues around the topics of care and maintenance that I found relevant for the growth of any spatial practice.
Cover design in collaboration with Francesca Lucchitta, screen printed at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL Printed and bound at BBBookBinding Workshop at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL
The reader is available online to read, download, print and bind. Please write a mail.
3. Ajda Pratika, Buckwheat – from Landscape to Table, almanac publication,
2022, Topolove, IT Graphic Design, curator, contributor
Ajda Pratika is a project by Robida: Elena Braida, Dora Ciccone, Francesca Lucchitta, Kim Lang, Elena Rucli, Vida Rucli, Vid Skrbinšek, Janja Šušnjar.
Leafing through this little booklet you will encounter different types of content: there are short fragments containing information about buckwheat and there are invitations to engage with the plant thanks to small actions and embodied exercises. There are recipes which accompany you through the year by considering phenological seasons, such as Winterly Rest or Pre-Spring. There are indications on how to cultivate the plant and how to take care of the garden, following the ten seasons of the phenological calendar. There are longer texts exploring Slovene cultural artefacts connected to buckwheat, such as kozolci, hayracks where buckwheat was dried and stored, or žrmlje, hand-mills, witnesses of the everyday labour connected to grains. Ajda Pratika also contains traces of Slovene cultural production linked to buckwheat, from traditional folk songs, to legends as well as older and newer poetry production. Beside poetic content, it also includes a more scientific collection of information, with data about the world production of buckwheat, the nutritional values of buckwheat flour or kaša in comparison to other grain and in-depth research about amino acids contained by the plant. Ajda Pratika is not a finished object: on the contrary, you are invited to use it as a manual or source of information and at the same time as a journal that enables you to fill it with your observations, thoughts and experiences.
The project was created as part of the 27th Biennal of Design – BIO27 Super Vernaculars, Design for a Regenerative Future, which is produced by the Museum of Architecture and Design MAO in collaboration with the Center for Creativity CzK, Ljubljana (SLO).
Cover Design by Juna Horstmans, printed in risograph by Terry Bleu, Amsterdam, NL
Book printed in offset by Grafiche Filacorda, Udine, IT
The book is available online at Robida’s Shop. For any direct purchases or questions, please write a mail.
4. Not Mine not your but ours, Butter project reader, 2022, Amsterdam, NL
Graphic Design, reader for personal use
This ensemble of texts, research, essays, images and photographs has shaped over the year 2021/2022. What you will encounter in-between the following words has been a truly inspirational journey in order to get closer to butter. Whether theoretically or historically, with my body or through the mind, I not only learnt about butter but I acquired confidence enough to recognise the multitude shades this material is entailed and I did so mostly by pure imitation. Feeling, acting, greasing, softening, melting, cleaning, solidifying, moulding, over and over again with always butter between my hands, on my body.
Cover design by Francesca Lucchitta, screen printed at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL
Printed and bound at BBBookBinding Workshop at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL
Contribution text by Dutch artist Sasha van Aalst
In order to keep the butter fresh and the conversation going you are more than welcome to borrow the reader for 6 months in exchange of one response, a body of words, a visual essay (max two A4). Please write a mail.
5. The Carrier Bag of Recipes, BA thesis publication, 2020, Amsterdam
Self-published book
To write, to boil, to cook ideas, stir them all, spice them up with some references and again write and knead the dough out of it. To what forms can recipes lead? This is the central question of this thesis. Recipes follow a certain literary genre. Whether carved on stones or written along the horizontal edges of a notebook, they all conform to a specific structure. In the text Ianalyse these structures, to show the way in which the recipe itself unveils its deeper meanings, concerns, and secrets. Why, when, who and how are fundamental questions I ask, while I read out loud a recipe about macaroni from the 1495—or when I look at a Sumerian tablet where a Cuneiform system of writing states that epilepsy is a tease of the demons. Material form, literary form and social interaction are the flavours I want to bring up from each recipe I use as an example, hoping to find a way to understand how these three elements are melted together to form an interconnected circle.
Designed by Amsterdam based Graphic Designer Kimberley Cosmilla (FR); 2nd edition printed in offset.
The book is currently sold out! If you would be interested on a future re-print, please write a mail.
6. Inhabitant, project reader, 2019, Amsterdam Graphic Design, reader for personal use
Texts and visual research including essays and development process of Inhabitant around the notions of: shelter, fashion architecture, skin as a boundary and point of connection, place of touch, felting, privacy & public.
Cover design by Kaspar Sellin, screen printed at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL Printed and bound at BBBookBinding Workshop Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL
