ITS emerging designer competition now open for applications

The International Talent Support (ITS) emerging designer competition has unveiled its 2020 programme. ITS was founded in 2002 by Barbara Franchin, and this year it will be staging its 18th edition, scheduled in Trieste on July 17 at Magazzino 42, the northern Italian city’s ferry passenger terminal. The competition is now open for applications, with a deadline of March 15. The finalists will be announced in May.

This year, the competition’s chosen theme is “sustainable design”, and its slogan is ‘Here We Belong’, a reference to our relationship with the planet Earth. Last year, sustainability and environmentally-friendly design were predominant in the shortlisted candidates’ collections.

It is a theme that will presumably feature extensively this year too, being “the expression of an explicit recognition, an essential, informed cultural understanding permeating all aspects of our daily lives, especially through the different forms creativity takes,” as the organisers stated in a press release.

In the meantime, ITS’s headquarters have moved to a new venue, a historical palazzo in the heart of Trieste owned by the CRTrieste Foundation, the foundation of the city’s savings bank, one of the event’s long-standing sponsors. The building is also home to the competition’s archives and to Arcademy, Barbara Franchin’s latest project.

Arcademy is an “academy for creativity,” a venue open to the general public that will host educational events, meetings and exhibitions, and act as a hub for the whole ITS community, from former finalists to jury members and other industry figures. Arcademy is set to be inaugurated in 2021, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ITS.

ITS emerging designer competition now open for applications

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