Fornaci Brancaterra S'Infiamma

Three days where the earth catches fire

Fornaci Brancaterra S'Infiamma is an international artistic event dedicated to ceramics and the arts of fire, held in Carife, a small town in the Baronia area, in the province of Avellino, in the heart of Irpinia, Campania. The venue is neither a town square nor a trade fair pavilion: it is an authentic rural kiln in the Ciaruolo area, the workshop of master ceramist Gaetano Branca, who opens his gates every year to potters, sculptors, students, and the curious.

For three days, clay ceases to be a display object and returns to being a process: it is kneaded, thrown, decorated, and fired outdoors, right before the public's eyes. It is an event to be watched and, above all, experienced, amidst the hum of the wheels, the heat of the kilns, and the scent of burning wood.

The International Raku Ceramics Competition

The heart of the event is the International Raku Ceramics Competition, which reached its fourteenth edition in 2026 according to the official website. Raku is a firing technique of Japanese origin: the piece is extracted incandescent from the kiln and immersed in combustible materials, where smoke and thermal shock create crackles and metallic reflections that no artist can fully control. It is this unpredictability that makes Raku a spectacle, as well as a technique.

In Carife, the competition takes place live: participants create and fire their works on-site using the kiln's facilities, and the jury evaluates the results at the end of the working days. The competition is open to ceramists from outside the region and abroad, giving the event a much broader scope than one would expect from a village of a few hundred inhabitants.

The Potter's Wheel Contest and the Vase Beauty Contest

Alongside the Raku competition, the program includes two other challenges that have become hallmarks of the event:

• Potter's Wheel Contest: ceramists test their skill and speed, with the public just a few steps away from the wheel.
• Vase Beauty Contest: here, speed is not what counts, but rather form, proportion, and the quality of the finish.

The awards ceremony traditionally closes the event on Sunday.

Workshops, courses, and experimental firings

A significant part of the event is dedicated to the transmission of knowledge: courses and workshops are open to the public, allowing even those who have never touched clay to try their hand, guided by the masters present. Recent editions have featured:

• Raku and naked raku firings, with hot extraction and reduction;
• pit firing, firing in a pit with sawdust and wood;
• the construction of ephemeral primitive kilns made of clay, which are then lit and sacrificed during the event;
• pottery wheel courses and demonstrations of modeling and assembly techniques;
• opportunities for meeting and exchange between masters, students, and visitors.

The structure is more like an international ceramics symposium than a traditional festival: people come to learn and to watch others work.

Gaetano Branca and the Fornaci Brancaterra

The entire event was born from an idea by master ceramist Gaetano Branca, owner of Fornaci Brancaterra, an artisan company based in Carife. His workshop gained national notoriety thanks to its appearance in the third season of Dinner Club, the show by Carlo Cracco distributed on Prime Video, which brought the attention of the general public to a workshop hidden among the Irpinian hills.

The result is an event that combines two souls: the artisanal and local one, rooted in a land of clay and ancient crafts, and the contemporary and international one, built on exchange between artists and experimentation with firing techniques.

Carife, the Baronia, and Irpinia

Carife is located in the Ufita valley, in that area of eastern Irpinia known as the Baronia: cultivated hills, small villages, and quiet roads, far from the tourist image of the coastal Campania. Past editions have also included an excursion along the Ufita river alongside the kiln program.

When to go and who it is recommended for

The event is usually held at the end of May, over three days from Friday to Sunday: a period when the climate in the Baronia is already mild, and outdoor firings can be comfortably followed until evening. It is suitable for ceramists and art students, but also for families and the curious: seeing an incandescent vase emerge from the kiln and change color in seconds is impressive at any age.