Italia Invita 2013

 

The 6th International Italia Invita Forum of Textile Creativity has updated their website to include the theme and competitions for the next Italia Invita Forum in Parma, Italy on May 10 - 12th, 2013.

Techniques covered at the next Forum will include: Embroidery, Lace, Quilting, Knitting, Crocheting, Felting, Cross Stitch, Weaving, Straw Plaiting, and just about any other textile art.

The theme will be: Intreccio Internationale which is difficult to translate into two words."Intreccio" is a weave, a plait or braid, a plot (of a story), an intertwining or interweaving - of paths, lives, things. The way they have explained it on the English general info page of their website is as follows:

...the theme is “Intreccio Internazionale” because we will search the path that “the thread” has made, prior to materialize into an art, a technique, a precious artifact. An invitation to retrace the steps through which every single work of each school has reached perfection, thanks to contamination with other techniques.

As usual, there are two competitions open to the public with the entries being displayed during the Forum:

The topics chosen for 2013 are ‘circle’ and ‘internationality’: one as a symbol of unity, of what has no beginning and no end, and the other as the basis of the “growth” due to the exchange between different cultures.

The Squaring the Circle competition is open to individual quilters, groups and associations and the International Circle competition is open to anyone who wants to use any textile method to create a themed piece.

Prizes include a Juki sewing machine, a Juki cutting and sewing machine, Aurifil threads and €1,800.00 in vouchers to spend at the Italia Invita Forum in the vendors section.

I was waiting until they had made the rules available in English on their website to tell you about this but I have learned that the rules will not be made available in any other language than Italian. This seemed strange to me for an international competition and event. I received this response to my query from Fiere di Parma, the company that hosts the event:

The rules are only in Italian because the competition is reserved only for Italian citizens due to issues with the Government.
Unfortunately, the law does not allow Italy to organize international competitions and so we were forced to deal with this limitation.

There will be workshops and classes that you can register for and attend and I am told that a list of these will be available in the next couple of weeks.

A list of exhibitors and vendors will become available after the new year.  So check back to the Italia Invita website often for updates.

In other posts I have told you about previous editions of Italia Invita Forums:

Italia Invita - Part One - 2003

Italia Invita - Part Two - 2005
Italia Invita - Part Three - 2007

Italia Invita - Part Four - 2009
Italia Invita - Part Five - 2011

Truly, if you get the chance to go, make the effort. No where else can you get so many Italian needlework schools, teachers, techniques and supplies at a single event.