Designers Cosma Frascina
Graduating in Industrial Design from ISIA Florence in 2013, Cosma went on to develop a practice grounded in the meticulous study of material properties typical of design production, while also expanding the conversation around where the boundaries between design and art may be drawn.
Frascina has refined a technical language that draws from the artisanal traditions of his native Salento and its natural resources, while foregrounding the ways in which human intervention erodes the very territory from which it originates — and how that territory, in turn, may reclaim itself. Calcarenite stone, marble, and concrete become elements in a dialogue that stages both the brutal force nature can exert on human fragility and the violence of man-made interference.
The roughness and inherent unpredictability of nature form both a source of inspiration and a methodological framework: one of contemplative surrender to temporality and its uncompromising laws. The action of time upon natural resources is central to Cosma’s practice. Nothing is static; none of his works remains eternally unchanged. Each piece is touched, shaped, and transformed by time.
Rejecting the hyper-accelerated pace of contemporary cultural production, Cosma embraces slowness as a way to distill meaning and purity from the constant flow of stimuli generated by the ubiquity of media content. He pursues this altered, almost meditative state through manual labor: sculpting, carving, and sanding offer an illusory abstraction from reality, a suspension of judgment.
Yet this space of illusion, or ideality, becomes precisely the ground from which to challenge fixed notions of beauty and functionality. It is a realm informed by historical canons, yet free from suffocating frameworks. His design process is often led by instinct — immediate and intuitive — and unfolds through mistakes, revisions, and adjustments, without fear.
Recent exhibitions include Traslochi (2023) at Kunstschau, Lecce; Crack (2023) at comeforbreakfast, Milan; a collaboration with AYBAR Gallery and Kelly Wearstler (2023); INTRECCI, INTERTWININGS in Salve (LE) in August 2025; and LOBBY NOMADE during Lake Como Design Festival in September 2025.
