WTI Magazine #45    2014 October, 15
Author : buonenotizie.it      Translation by:

It is not a museum , but a big music studio: a "factory" to all intents and purposes, where the sound is the main charachter and children and guys coming from different schools are the "workers". "Fabbrica dei Suoni" (Sounds Factory) of Venasca is an idea born from the intuition of Mattia Sismonda and Cristiano Cometto, two violinists from Piedmonts who have decided to create a new job putting the usual concert life next to an atypical educational activity, that represents a unique example also outside of Italy at the moment. As to say: reinventing ourselves by creating something new.

It all started back six years ago in Venasca, a town of 1600 souls in the province of Cuneo, when an old, no longer used factory was transformed into a sound laboratory: the project, which embraces the requalification of the territory and the need to create new work opportunities, has little by little changed the essence of Venasca and has turned the dozy cluster of the town into a small, dynamic but above all very young centre, always lived by the presence of pupils. Something similar happened in Scampia neighborhood, in Naples.

"At the moment most students visiting "La Fabbrica dei Suoni" come from the North of Italy" tells Mattia Sismonda. The 70% from Piedmont, followed from Liguria, Lombardia and Valle d'Aosta; however we are also getting ready for schools coming from further away regions: now, for instance we are in contact with a school in Molfetta, Puglia, for whose we are thinking of planning a school trip with some extra days, including also a sightseeing of Turin. Primary schools are our main customers, even if the project is also directed to high schools, even to disabled persons: we work frequently with the blind and even with the deaf".

Obviously, it seems natural wandering which is the strenght point of this initiative: above all, what are the differences between "La Fabbrica dei Suoni" and a well-established reality in years as La Citè de la Musique of Paris or Haus der Musik of Vienna? In fact, the main difference is a structural one. "La Fabbrica del Suono" is interactive and visitors become an integral part of that journey, that is built from time to time.

Through the eight halls - each of which has a strongly evocative name, such as " Magazzino delle materie prime" (storage of raw materials) or "Catena di montaggio" (assembly line) - visitors are guided across an itinerary of discovery and experimentation whose main character is not music, but sound: the raw material par excellence. Playful, scenographic, interactive, the journey goes through pendulums, vibrating objects and it ends in the "sala del prodotto finito" (finish product hall) with a big stairway to walk and to play step by step.

A real success, confirmed by the fact that very often students who visit the museum during the week come back on their own initiative on Saturday or Sunday, dragging their parents along: it is not by chance that, starting from positive feedback, the authors of "La Fabbrica" have already begun extending the project creating "Atlante dei Suoni" (sounds atlas), that in Boves - 30 kilometres far from Venasca - "horizontally" develops the concept of "La Fabbrica", introducing a multi-ethnic journey through the sounds of the five continents.

"The nice thing - proudly tells Mattia Sismonda - is that while usually school trips take place in april or may, in our case there is full house in october: in fact teachers prefer to come soon in the teaching season, because they say that the tour of "La Fabbrica" supplies materials to work on during the whole school year.