Paper weight, new DC project site in the former paper mill of Vas

Paper weight
August the 20th- September 11th 2015
Former Paper Mill (Cartiera) of Vas
Municipality of Quero Vas
Via Case Sparse, Vas (Belluno)

Lab/Residency: 20th-30th of August
Opening: friday September the 11th, 6 PM 

Artists: Elena Carozzi, Beatrice Meoni, Phillippa Peckham, Maja Thommen, Silvia Vendramel

The former papermill of Vas is one of the great industrial archeology compounds of the Belluno Province, on which Dolomiti Contemporanee had already begun a process of reflection in 2012, proposing to the public administration in charge at the time an enhancement project through contemporary art for this amazing site. In 2012 the site was still, motionless.
Today, Dolomiti Contemporanee opens here a cultural “construction site”, which is in the process of producing its first artistic lab: Paper weight.
Paper weight is a project ideated and developed by Elena Carozzi, Beatrice Meoni, Phillippa Peckham, Maja Thommen, Silvia Vendramel.
The five artists will operate in the Quero Vas Municipality, through a residency program.
In answer to DC’s invite, the group is then preparing to interact with the spaces of the former paper mill (Cartiera). The residency will generate a 10-day lab, which will end with an exhibition, opening on September the 11th.
The group of artists, differing in training and origins (Italy, United Kingdom, Switzerland), is meeting up for the fourth time in the context of a project born in the winter 2014. Said project  is based on the experience of improv and exchange during the whole set-up phase, with the aim of mixing languages through constant dialogue.
The concept is distancing itself from the expected tropes of the collective exhibit, finding its strength in the experience of exchange, respecting the peculiarity of each artist. The result is a set-up in which the equilibrium of the whole is guaranteed by the support provided by each singular voice, and where shapes tangle and open each other up, gaining new perspectives and opportunities for reflection.

Paper Weight is part of the Radici Future (Eng.: Future Roots) project, realized by the Union of the Municipalities of the Basso Feltrino Sette Ville - Alano di Piave and Quero Vas of Quero Vas. The project aims for the enhancement of the locations of the Great War, as conductors of memory and knowledge, but also as possible future scenarios, not to mention to the requalification and enhancement several strategic locations and sites along the Piave river, like the former paper mill.

The artists will work on the territory, directly involving in their artworks and practices the local community, activating a series of relational actions and processes. In addition to the municipal administration, owner of a part of the site, and to the LaCharta cultural association, which operates inside the structure, the private owners of the site (Martinotto Family - La Cartiera Union), as well as several local businesses (Deon Constructions, Biasiotto Wines) are being involved in the project too, with the goal of generating a shared platform. able to activate, through art and culture, a positive reaction towards theenhancement of the Asset.

An important partner of Paper Weight is Paper&People, which distributes Repap, an innovative paper made out of stone, in Italy.

Paper weight – work in progress >>