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AVVENTURA NEL REGNO DI PORCELLANA is the winning book of the 9th Edition of the Silent Book Contest – Gianni De Conno Award 2022, the first international contest for illustrated books without words. It’s a challenge and a bet for the illustrators around the world: they’re called to participate to the contest by realizing a “silent” book and to be judged by an important International Jury.
The 9th Edition of the Silent Book Contest – Gianni De Conno Award 2022 sees Carthusia Edizioni as main organizer together with some important partners like Bologna Children’s Book Fair, Turin International Book Fair, Municipality di Mulazzo, Associazione Montereggio Paese dei Librai, IOB International Organization of Book Towns, Centro per il libro e la lettura, IBBY Italia, BPER Banca, and Rai Ragazzi and Rai Radio 3 as Media Partners. Since the 2018 Edition the contest is dedicated to its creator Gianni De Conno, a great artist and illustrator passed away in August 2017.
The International Jury, chaired by Walter Fochesato (expert of children's literature and history of illustration – Italy) is composed by Emanuela Bussolati (illustrator – Italy), Eros Miari (member of the editorial board of the Turin International Book Fair – Italy), Soojin Kwak (winner of the Silent Book Contest 2019 - South Korea), Elena Pasoli (director of the Bologna Children's Book Fair – Italy), Sonja Riva (writer and journalist of CSR – Switzerland), Sara Wang (CEO of Sidee Cultural Communication - China), Javier Zabala (illustrator – Spain), Patrizia Zerbi (publisher of Carthusia Edizioni – Italy).
Last spring the Jury, with the support of Costanza De Conno of the SBC Organizing Secretariat, selected 13 unpublished finalist projects from among 250 works from 44 countries around the world:
After a second round of voting, the International Jury has choosen the winning project of the SBC2022. AVVENTURA NEL REGNO DI PORCELLANA is a book without words that tells the story of the fisherman depicted on a porcelain vase. One day, a gust of wind takes aways his hat, which is lost in the decorations of other porcelains. So the fisherman sets off on a long search that will lead him to discover distant lands and new friends, from one porcelain vase to another.
A journey told with delicate illustrations, which invites us to look at the objects of our daily life with different eyes.
"The idea for the book came from my love for teapots", says author Katerina Illnerova. “In addition to finding them very beautiful, for me they also represent a moment of calm in a chaotic day. Then, during my iconographic research on teapots, I discovered the whole world of blue and white porcelain and I fell in love with it." Katerina is a very young illustrator from the Czech Republic. She is studying for a Master's degree at the Faculty of Design and Art of Ladislav Sutnar with a focus on illustration for children. Her work has been selected in numerous national and international competitions and comic festivals. In the Czech Republic, many of his illustrations have been published in children's books and magazines.
AVVENTURA NEL REGNO DI PORCELLANA is now part of the series “SILENT BOOK” published by Carthusia Edizioni. The series has now 25 titles in it, made by winners and finalists of the Silent Book Contest. Big books without words to tells stories through the only power of the images, “silent” books of great authors who took part of such an important contest.
Since 2018 the Silent Book Contest is dedicated to Gianni De Conno, its ideator and creator. An artist of great impact, one of the greatest illustrators of the Italian publishing scene, in which he operated a dense dreamlike vein sustained by an inclination to hyperrealism, a magical and surrealism, a sort of profoundly original creative oxymoron. Gianni De Conno was also a true “Grandmaster”, he illustrated and interpreted the world, he taught with passion and care, in this little and small editorial world, he made a lot of other extraordinary things in his work.
