During the first days of January 2016, a new spark for the experimental printing Lab that is being activated in the Colonia di Borca was lit.
The Print Lab project has begun in September 2015, during the “Riparare, prendersi cura” workshop, realized with Marta Allegri and the Fine Arts Academy of Venice.
The workshop had the aim of developing a transformative capacity in regards of the territory, through care and maintenance (riparare, prendersi cura) of objects and spaces.
In this context, Sofia Bonato, a student at the Academy, proposed to create an experimental printing and carving lab in the spaces of the Ironing Room of the Colonia, with machinery and objects recovered there, which were going to be regenetared through new functions connected, of course, to the printing process.
During the first residency period, some old pizza baking trays (used back then by the Eni children of the Colonia) found in the wardrobes became the first carving slates. The section of a concrete pillar found outside the Colonia was used for the pressing.
Now, on the other hand, they want to utilize the big laundry press, unused for years (see picture below) as a printing press, giving thus mechanic life back to the machnery. They wish to recover and transfer the original movement of the engine to the machine with a branching wheel, built in recovered wood, which, when moved manually, will produce the rotation of the reel.
This idea is evidently perfectly in line with the operative practice of Dolomiti Contemporanee and with the platform Progettoborca, which operates to the regeneration of the great Corte di Cadore site: the laundry press is reactivated, and morphed into something new, a creative tool.
The destiny of inertia of the object is refused, as is refused the destiny of oblivion of the extraordinary Borca site.
Together with the printing press, the project involves the idea of printing the tracks left by the wildlife that animates the Colonia at night, following the hard engraving techniques
This will be made possible thanks to the recovery of the cyclostyle machines found in the Colonia, whose system of mechanic printing, now obsolete, was replaced by photocopy machines in the ’80s.
In this Winterlab, Sofia Bonato and Matteo Valerio turn their attention to the process of (re)construction and operation of the object, to the evolution of its role in terms of interrelation with those who utilize it and the environment in which it can be found.
The aim isn’t to recover it as it were, but to rethink it, renovated in its function.
This practice of care goes against the exclusively economic utility, and finds in maintenance the method with which to bring action back to an inert location.
To think of a new function for an object is synonym with the revival of its relationship with the environment of the Colonia, which is changing in nature, and with its new “regulars”.

Photo: Giacomo De Donà, Stefano Moras