Approach to mosaic for young co-regionals
Discovering their roots:
a trip to Friuli Venezia Giulia and an experience at the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli to strengthen ties with their ancestors.
Fifteen days: this is the time spent by eleven young people who share Friulian roots. They come from Argentina and Brazil, and their names are Maria Luiza Stangherlin, Alejandro F. Friedli, Mateo Carnelos, Valentin Nicolas Sosa Sanchez, Ticiana Candela Sangoy, Justina Greifemberg, Laureana Ercole, Agustin Brollo, Natalia Soledad Yoris, Paula Agustina Yoris and Leila Belen Spesot. Their ancestors, mostly peasants, spoke Friulian and had left for South America to seek their fortune: great was their spirit of sacrifice and adaptation, but above all their desire to build a better future than the one they left behind, for their own well-being and that of their descendants. And it is precisely to those descendants that a call for entries is addressed, now in its fourteenth edition, edited by the Ente Friuli nel Mondo, in collaboration with the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, and financed by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region – Minority languages and co-regionalists abroad service.
So with eyes full of curiosity, the same as their great-grandparents, but certainly with another awareness, the young people selected for 2025 landed in a foreign land. Yet this land is not so foreign, and although the internet makes everything less fanciful, the black and white photos and the stories, either direct or handed down by the elders, have dressed Friuli in a mythical aura. What a discovery, what a connection to history and to one’s own roots is therefore this stay in Friuli, which gives concrete and real form to names hitherto read on maps, to the countries where it all began!
However, this is not just a travel opportunity, but a shared experience that the presence of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli in the project makes possible. The School in fact specifically organises an Introduction Course to the art of mosaic, this year led by the teacher, master mosaicist, Eleonora Zannier. It is a formative and exchange way to get in touch with a typically regional artistic-craft form, of great tradition and of international contemporary affirmation. Workshop-based in nature, the course offers the opportunity to get involved and create mosaic works that will be transformed into a souvenir capable of encapsulating the emotions of discovery, recognition and contact. During the hours of activities at the school, in addition to acquiring mosaic skills, the young corregionali had the opportunity to make friends, practise the Italian language, train their patience and artistic taste, delve into Friulian culture, exchange opinions and enrich their knowledge: their interest in Friuli, which they proudly live as a founding element of their family, is strong, stimulated at home by the lively Fogolârs furlans, accomplices in fostering relationships and memories.
The co-regionals selected for this stay in Friuli are aged between twenty and thirty-five, have good CVs and strong motivations. They left the other hemisphere in jackets and jumpers, in the middle of winter from different parts of South America: a diverse group whose members did not know each other. They have a technical, artistic, scientific, economic education, they are mostly already active in the world of work: a teacher, a baker, a medical student, a graphic designer, an engineer… In experiencing together a voyage of discovery, in experiencing something new, the art of mosaic, the group became a team and the pleasure of getting to know each other, combined with the curiosity of moving around the main centres of the region and beyond. They thus visited Gemona del Friuli, Udine, Palmanova, Aquileia and Grado, also touching on Trieste in order to use the weekend for longer transfers such as Verona or Rome.
They start with some small mosaics they made, a Roman-style motif with natural materials and an enamel figure they chose in a contemporary style. They are two works that encapsulate all the richness and depth of this brief but intense stay in Friuli, a combination of many emotions that will perhaps prompt them to return to Italy, perhaps to the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, as happened several years ago to the Bonetti sisters, who arrived at the School through a project of the Friuli in the World Agency, returned as students and are now established mosaic professionals, owners of an important workshop in Brazil.
July 4, 2025
