In mezzo al mare (Amidst the sea)

The work aims to be a living archive: a terrain for new narratives and new perspectives on the profoundly anthropic landscape of Northern Italy. Cyanotype was the tool for reinterpreting and narrating local stories, traditions, and industrial heritage, constructing new visual traces of the local legacy. Starting from archival materials linked to the waterways and the memory of the silk mills, the filmmaker led participants through an immersive experience featuring traditional songs of the silk spinning girls who used to work there. In particular, the silk brocades were reimagined during a hands-on workshop with herbs, flowers, and leaves collected locally and printed by the participants on paper and silk using cyanotype, one of the most sustainable printing techniques. An attempt of community archiving, empowering local communities to tell their stories, through small gestures of care fostering identity and a more grassroots historical record.

The work was part of a series of initiatives of Citizen Engagement (CC3) curated by iNEST (Interconnected Nord-Est Innovation Ecosystem) of Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

The choir reenacting the silk mill girls' songs is from Valdobbiadene (TV), Italy: Coro Voces Plavis.

Botanical cyanotypes by workshop participants. Other cyanotypes created by the director, reinterpreting materials from local archives (FAST, Treviso) and museums (Museo del Baco da Seta, Vittorio V.to, TV, Italy)