The marsh, in its inherent instability, becomes a metaphor for the contemporary condition — one that requires a continuous recalibration of posture and direction. Within this context, design does not aim to stabilize, but to reveal what already exists and to activate its latent potential.
The weaving of marsh grasses — from harvesting to drying and preparation — is not a formal choice but an operative condition that shapes time, scale, and uniqueness. This approach reflects Studio Lievito’s position: working with local materials, intervening minimally, and engaging the project as a cultural device rooted in context. The territory is not overwritten, but questioned; traditional practices are not preserved as static heritage, but reactivated as living resources.
The three woven pieces of the Pantano collection – Badalì, Ormeggio and Cianta, translate gestures of observing, crossing, and dwelling into forms that mediate the relationship between body and landscape. Emerging from fieldwork and direct engagement with local knowledge, they reinterpret traditional weaving techniques through a contemporary lens.
Badalì is a birdwatching shield with an enveloping form that allows one to screen without isolating, to observe without intruding. Two circular surfaces in woven ‘sarello’ – Carex elata – supported by a clad wooden pole, filter light and gaze while echoing the gesture and symbolic charge of the ancient Greek and Etruscan circular shield, often decorated with faces or figures serving an apotropaic function — intended to protect the bearer and repel the adversary through the force of the gaze.
In a manner akin to ritual masks, tribal and otherwise — which operate at the threshold between visible and invisible, identity and transformation — Badalì assumes a symbolic function: to remind us that every act of observation is mediated, historically and culturally constructed, and that seeing always implies taking a position. The name Badalì derives from a Tuscan exclamation used to express sudden wonder, surprise, and admiration; in this context, it is ideally associated with the amazement experienced when sighting an animal or a natural “marvel.”
Ormeggio stems from observing a recurring gesture in the marsh: a small boat temporarily moored to the shore, establishing a reversible bond between water and land. It takes the form of a chain of large interwoven marsh-grass rings, translating the rigidity of a nautical chain into a soft, porous structure. As a threshold object, it marks the passage between movement and permanence, embodying a temporary and non-invasive connection to the landscape.
Cianta explores the act of crossing as a form of negotiation with the terrain. Named after the Tuscan word for slipper, it suggests an everyday, provisional way of moving through unstable ground. Made of concentric braids in ‘sarello’ (Carex elata) with a transverse element that wraps around the foot, it is worn over one’s own footwear to enlarge the support surface and redistribute weight. Walking becomes a reflective gesture: each step engages with the soil, building balance through the flexibility of the weave. In this sense, Cianta translates a technical solution into a cultural position, where adaptation becomes a form of respect toward a fragile ecosystem.
Pantano proposes a design of equilibrium. As in the marsh landscape — chosen as a metaphor for the social and historical condition we are currently experiencing — the works hold together stability and instability, rigor and adaptation
