Terra Incognita is a limited series of ceramic perfume bottles designed by Giulia Cosenza, where each object functions as the material translation of a specific emotional state.
Perfume bottles are traditionally made of glass, a material that allows the contents to remain visible and establishes a direct relationship with the fragrance itself. Choosing ceramic instead introduces a different design approach, where its opaque surface prevents the liquid from being seen and conceptually refers to the difficulty of clearly identifying and accessing certain emotions. The exhibition design is conceived as an emotional landscape that accompanies the project without reducing it to a purely explanatory display. It consists of a curved table, a platform, and a graphic system that structures the narrative around three underlying feelings, the one bottled in the ceramic composition – regret, compassion, and closeness – presenting them through a poetic framework while preserving the project’s intrinsic sense of ambiguity and resonance. Each emotion is then reinterpreted across the planes that host it, shaping the graphic composition of the inscriptions and words surrounding each vessel.
What emerges, then, is an emotional dimension of connection between the viewer and the work, where Giulia Cosenza’s pieces – the small bottles – become totemic elements within a genuine sentimental landscape.
Credits:
Concept & artowrks by Giulia Cosenza
Concept scents by Clarissa Leyting
Graphics by DEREIN
Photography by Michèle Margot photography
Terra Incognita è una serie limitata di boccette di profumo in ceramica disegnate da Giulia Cosenza, in cui ogni oggetto si configura come la traduzione materiale di uno stato emotivo.
Tradizionalmente, le boccette di profumo sono realizzate in vetro: un materiale che rende visibile il contenuto e stabilisce un rapporto diretto e immediato con la fragranza. La scelta della ceramica introduce invece una condizione opposta. La superficie opaca e non trasparente impedisce la visione del liquido e diventa metafora della difficoltà di riconoscere, definire e rendere immediatamente leggibili alcune emozioni.
L’allestimento interpreta questa dimensione come un vero e proprio paesaggio emotivo, costruito per accompagnare il progetto senza trasformarlo in una narrazione didascalica. Lo spazio si articola attraverso due piani curvi collocati a quote differenti, sostenuti da piedi in gommapiuma nera, che definiscono una composizione morbida e instabile, quasi sospesa.
A completare il sistema interviene un impianto grafico che restituisce i sentimenti evocati dalle fragranze — regret, compassion e closeness — mantenendone i nomi originali e traducendoli in una dimensione spaziale. Ogni boccetta genera infatti una propria interpretazione grafica sul piano che la ospita: testi, parole e segni si deformano, si espandono o si contraggono in relazione allo stato emotivo associato all’oggetto, trasformando la superficie espositiva in un’estensione narrativa dell’opera stessa.
Le boccette diventano così presenze totemiche all’interno di un paesaggio sentimentale, mentre l’allestimento costruisce una condizione di prossimità tra spettatore e oggetto, in cui spazio, grafica e materia concorrono alla definizione di un’esperienza percettiva ed emotiva unitaria.







Terra Incognita is a limited series of ceramic perfume bottles designed by Giulia Cosenza, where each object functions as the material translation of a specific emotional state.
Perfume bottles are traditionally made of glass, a material that allows the contents to remain visible and establishes a direct relationship with the fragrance itself. Choosing ceramic instead introduces a different design approach, where its opaque surface prevents the liquid from being seen and conceptually refers to the difficulty of clearly identifying and accessing certain emotions. The exhibition design is conceived as an emotional landscape that accompanies the project without reducing it to a purely explanatory display. It consists of a curved table, a platform, and a graphic system that structures the narrative around three underlying feelings, the one bottled in the ceramic composition – regret, compassion, and closeness – presenting them through a poetic framework while preserving the project’s intrinsic sense of ambiguity and resonance. Each emotion is then reinterpreted across the planes that host it, shaping the graphic composition of the inscriptions and words surrounding each vessel.
What emerges, then, is an emotional dimension of connection between the viewer and the work, where Giulia Cosenza’s pieces – the small bottles – become totemic elements within a genuine sentimental landscape.




