Book cover of Venetian Way by Marsilio Editions
Ahead of the second edition of the international exhibition Homo Faber: Crafting a more human future (Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 10 April - 1 May 2022), the Michelangelo Foundation has decided to publish a special book dedicated to the magnificent photography that Susanna Pozzoli created for the Venetian Way exhibition, presented during the first edition of Homo Faber in 2018.
An important publication, holding within its pages the heritage of artisanal savoir-faire from Venice and Veneto, reflected in images that are an extraordinary tribute to the lagoon city and its foremost creative ateliers, a living heritage which must not be lost to time but live beyond the exhibition and the moments when they were captured. The volume will be presented in November 2021 at Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s Tapestry Hall on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore, home to the Homo Faber Event. Susanna Pozzoli is the author, having worked both as the photographer and as the writer of the texts: short stories recounting her experiences, both professional and human, lived during her time spent in the artisans’ workshops and artisanal ateliers of excellence, the cherished protagonists of this publication.
La Bottega del Mascareri workshop - Susanna Pozzoli©Michelangelo Foundation
The artist managed to tiptoe into these workshops, enamoured by artisanal savoir- faire to soak up and interpret them; she has recounted her experiences in short and very personal texts, intense and engaging, capturing each time different details. The result is a collection not only of exceptional portraits, but also of stories of places, lives and very intimate emotions. The narration unfolds through the images of twenty-one carefully selected protagonists, identified by the Michelangelo Foundation and the Cologni Foundation in collaboration with some of the most important institutions in the field, such as Confartigianato Imprese Venezia. The words and the images in this poetic tribute to the beauty of crafts, people and places, follow the rhythms of the heart and the time frames of manual work, highlighting its sacredness.
A note from the Michelangelo Foundation and the preface by Franco Cologni open the publication. An introductory text by Toto
Bergamo Rossi, Director of the Venetian Heritage Foundation, highlights the historical value and living heritage that these portraits embody for Venice and the Veneto Region. The art historian Federica Muzzarelli presents the artistic aspect of the Venetian Way project, capturing the salient features of the author's vision, her slow and intimate gaze, which invites us to "delve into the images and the subject matter".
Venetian Way, curated by Susanna Pozzoli, Venice, Marsilio Editori, October 2021, photographs in colour, bilingual Italian/English edition, format 23.3 x 28.5 cm, pp. 180, hard back copy price 40 euros.
“Along the waterways of Venice and the territory that surrounds it, tucked away modestly within the fabric of life here, an important number of artisans practice their mastery in a wide range of fields. Taking an old camera loaded with film and plenty of time, Susanna Pozzoli slipped into the rhythms and disappeared into the working life of a small selection of twenty-one ateliers in order to bring to light their hidden worlds for Homo Faber. The images that carry you along Venetian Way are a series of pauses – instants in time captured during the throes of intense activity. The viewer is placed in between: in between arms stretching out and pulling back, in between a hand rolling bright ink over a screen, in between lifting, positioning, bending. Venetian Way is the experience of a fleeting moment. And this in-between moment is an invitation to open your imagination, to enter these rich spaces. Intimate and universal at once, Venetian Way is also a beauty walk – not the beauty of a finished product nor of some romanticized notion of times gone by, but a plain and arresting inner beauty, a beauty borne of the pleasure and love for the work itself.” -
Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship.
“In 2010 a residence for artists took me to South Korea, where I took a plunge into the rich world of the country’s artisans, focusing my lens on the places in which they work rather than the things they make. Since then my interest in the arts and crafts has only grown. Homo Faber has given me the opportunity to immerse myself once again in the unique beauty of craft workshops, this time in what was once the Repubblica Serenissima. I left Paris with my Hasselblad and Rolleiflex cameras for Venice, where I made my base, and experienced a long period of enchantment, approaching the crafts, learning how they functioned before starting to photograph them and getting in tune with the times and phases of the work and the raw materials. I went back to the workshops often, and in the process of photographing them respected the reality of the location without altering the situation, simply presenting it as it was through the marvellous power of photography. The
experience of life and the richness of the encounters arising from this project, which took me two years of work, are the essence of this book, which both describes and invites the reader to imagine what is not revealed. Every place photographed and every artisan has a special magic of their own. Venetian Way allows readers to enter into these different worlds with me, offering them the illusion of actually being present in the workshop and admiring, in a moment of suspension, the discreet and precious beauty to be found in these places.”-
Susanna Pozzoli
The Author
An Italian photographer living in Paris, Susanna Pozzoli alternates between large exhibition projects and commissions mainly dedicated to artisanal savoir-faire. Her personal research involves photography texts and videos made by her. During her formative years, she participated in international exchanges and residencies between Paris, Milan and New York. Her different series have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries and published in four monographic volumes and numerous catalogues. In 2018 she created Venetian Way, an extensive collection of photographs exhibited at Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice for Homo Faber. In 2019 she was a finalist of the VAF Foundation Award and exhibited at the Museum MART of Rovereto, the Casa Costanza series. Her photographs are characterised by a particular sensitivity for places and objects and a great deal of attention to detail and a personal aesthetic. The narrative aspect remains central to her research. With a literary background, a degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and History of Art, she chose photography as a medium to recount the stories of personalities and places that she wishes to save from the inexorable passing of time, capturing them in timeless and poetic images.
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