ZITOZZA is open!

ZITA KATONA

31/08/2020

ZITOZZA is open!

Finally I can reveal the fruits of a long-held passion project – my little treasure chest of printed jute is open for all to see, with luminous neon and deep copper and lush green prints on the super sustainable, golden wonderfabric. It combines my brutalist obsession with some more traditional textile prints – have a look for yourself, because yes, it has its own website.

 

I bought the domain for Zitozza in 2018, when I was working in Holland with a lot of Italians who used this nickname with me and I thought it sounded fun, Italian and designery, which would be perfect if I launched another company. Indeed, it was in a hyper stimulating environment and only a year after finishing my Masters and I was full of ideas, although I was not sure what I wanted to do. Something something brutalism, because I’m me. Something something jute, because sustainability and ease of handling. Something something block printing because, well, because it is immense fun.

 

I have worked with block printing and jute before. I first got acquainted with it at University on a research project about industrial heritage and Dundee and because of how these project go I panicked a bit and I designed a set of printing blocks in case digital wouldn’t work. It worked, but I loved the process and I used the same material and the same process again for the Anthropocene treble project, „GRIDS”, part one of three used a fresh set of industrial and traffic and logistics inspired printing blocks on jute. It was successful, yet I was still not done with it, although my time at uni was. I wanted to do something fluorescent and brutalist and neon and concrete but I wanted to take new photos, travel to other new towns and somehow never got there.

 

Then 2020 happened and a lot plans got disrupted and suddenly there was nowhere to go and then I started working on this. First I took a colour and shape research in the form of embroidery, because I couldn’t even go anywhere to take photos. I dyed some yarn and I finished an 8-part series of mini-tapestries. Then I looked at my printing blocks and I decided to complete both the large bits of the first Dundee heritage project which became the HERITAGE series, and the 10×10 additions to GRIDS, which became the MODERN series, and with a lot of colours I printed day and night until the house was chocka with jut, and now there is a website for it where you can purchase some of it.

 

So this is kind of the origin story and how it happened, the rest is not history because it’s only just started, the rest is still the present and the future. You can have a look on the website, and please also follow the instagram account. I intend to fill it with lots of pretty things if and maybe it evolves into something really, really cool.