The Colour Library tells its extraordinary secrets
Fornace Orsoni, founded in 1888, is located in Venice, in the Cannaregio district. Since 2003 it has been part of the TREND Group, a design company specialising in artistic and industrial mosaics, but it still retains its centuries-old tradition. In fact, it is the last historical furnace in Venice still active, and it guards the knowledge necessary to produce 24K gold leaf mosaics, coloured gold and Venetian enamels.
One of the historic components of the kiln’s cultural heritage is the Colour Library, a magical place that holds more than 3,500 Venetian enamel plates, one for each colour available in the company’s catalogue. It is precisely on the Library that the intervention within the Mimesis project focused, enhancing the visit path through a sound intervention in the company space.
After a close observation of the production process, D20 ART LAB created a site-specific sound installation entitled ‘Sounds from the Library’ by selecting some of the pigments most relevant to the identity and fortune of the Orsoni mosaics.
Speakers have been positioned in correspondence with their position inside the library. As the visitor passes through, they enrich the visit with poetic texts related to the history of the colours, and with music obtained from the recording of the sounds of the various processing phases that take place inside the kiln.
‘Sounds from the library’ was therefore configured as an artistic intervention that, through sound showers, enriches a special place for the company and tells the story of a pillar of Venetian handicraft culture.