Elisa Ossino
Giuseppe Tudisco

Elisa Ossino is a Sicilian architect and designer who trained in Milan, where she studied at the Politecnico. In 2006 she founded Elisa Ossino Studio, through which she works across residential and retail interiors, product design, exhibitions and creative direction. Her research combines geometric abstraction, monochrome palettes, and metaphysical and surrealist references, giving rise to a coherent and allusive relationship between space—defined by the strong mark of her visual language—light and objects. She favours essential lines and geometries that translate into spatial signs capable of conveying a pronounced scenographic quality. The metaphysical nuance of her objects, together with their atmospheric and immaterial qualities, is interwoven with stylistic references ranging from modernism and the Bauhaus to primitivism and surrealism. Her work often evokes a distinctly pictorial dimension, rooted in two-dimensionality. A deep interest in the refinement of artisanal craftsmanship, capable of producing unique outcomes, coexists within the Studio’s practice with the experimentation of new materials inspired by circular economy processes. Over the years, she has collaborated with leading international companies and received numerous prestigious awards, including the Red Dot Award in the Best of the Best category, the iF Design Award and the Edida Award, and her name has been included several times in the AD100 list compiled by the Architectural Digest (AD) network. In 2021, the Venice Design Biennial dedicated a solo exhibition to her, “Una stanza tutta per sé”.

Giuseppe Tudisco represents the latest generation of a family of Nola-based papier-mâché artisans, who have contributed their skill and artistry to working with this medium and to shaping the image of one of the world’s most famous traditional festivals, the Festa dei Gigli (Festival of the Lilies) in Nola (Naples), now inscribed on the unesco Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. A degree in Law and a life spent in the workshop since the age of ten, choosing a career was a no-brainer for Giuseppe, who took over the running of the family business alongside his father Salvatore. The history and craft of the Tudisco family are originally linked to the production of the so-called gigli (shoulder-borne processional structures) for the Nola festival. Over time, however, they gradually innovated their creations by opening up to other fields—today, they produce theatre sets, allegorical floats, nativity scenes and shop fittings, while actively collaborating with the world of contemporary art and with artists such as Mimmo Paladino and Perino & Vele.