Fabrica London Festival.

An event which presents the creative activities of the Benetton research centre for communication. For the whole month of February in London, in co-operation with the Italian Cultural Institute

London, 1st February 2001. From 1st to 28th February, Fabrica will be a guest of the Italian Cultural Institute, for the Fabrica London Festival: a series of events presenting its various artistic and creative activities.

1st February will see the inauguration of the COLORS Extra/Ordinary Objects exhibition, which will remain open until the 14th of the month, at the David Gill Galleries, 3 Loughborough Street, London SE11. This is a collection of objects gathered together by Colors, the magazine published by Benetton, during its ten years of activity. Objects which are useless and bizarre, but also commonly used objects which become extraordinary outside their normal context: from diet pills for dogs to lollipops containing a worm; from a toy vulva in satin and velvet to ethnic plasters in three colours; from Texan golf boots to a pubic wig. Food, fashion, sex: every excuse is valid to tell a story of different world cultures through a collection of objects which are a valuable indicator of the habits, crazes, dreams and nightmares of our times. As Peter Gabriel writes in his introduction to the book/catalogue 1000 Extra/Ordinary Objects, published by Taschen,: "We have made pictures of our ancestors from the things they have left behind. So it will be for the archaeologists of the future-by our objects you will know us".

From 14th February to the end of the month, the Fabrica London Festival continues at the Italian Cultural Institute, 39 Belgrave Square, with a selection of photos, videos, design and graphic works produced by young designers working in the research centre.

A special event is also scheduled on each Monday of the month at the Institute. Three evenings will be devoted to the activities of Fabrica Cinema which, since 1998, under the direction of Marco Müller, has been working to support and develop cinematographic expression in far-flung corners of the world and Eastern Europe. Two films: Journey to the Sun by Yesim Ustaoglu (Turkey), winner the Blue Angel Prize as Best European film, as well as the Peace Prize at the 49th Berlin Film Festival, and Seventeen Years by Zhang Yuan (China), which won the Leone d'Argento (Silver Lion) for best director at the 56th Venice Film Festival, will be presented on Mondays 4th and 26th February respectively. Monday 12th February will be the turn of Afterwords by Gianfranco Rosi, Jean-Sébastien Lallemand and Carlos Martinez Casas, an experimental short film which was presented at the 57th Venice Film Festival.

Finally, on Monday 19th February, Fabrica Musica will present the multimedia performance The Left Hand of Glenn Gould in co-operation with the Students of the Theatre Studies Institute of Giessen University in Germany, coordinated by Heiner Goebbels and Andrea Molino.

Fabrica is Benetton's research and development centre for communication, created in 1994 from the cultural heritage of the Group. It is based in a prestigious seventeenth century architectural complex (just a few kilometres from Venice), which has been restored and extended by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Fabrica welcomes young experimental artists from all over the world, who are invited, after a careful selection process, to develop concrete communication projects under the artistic direction of some of the main players in a variety of sectors - from the cinema to graphics; from photography to design; from music to the new media.

For further information: +39 0422 519036