are we just `hooking up` to machines a no-life

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ARE WE JUST ‘HOOKING UP’ TO MACHINES A NO-LIFEEXPECTATIONS PATIENT?
THE CHALLENGES OF CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE CONSERVATION WHEN PHYSICAL FABRIC PRESERVATION IS
AN EVER-POSTPONED GOAL. A PERSPECTIVE.
Vania Santi, Società di Ricerca e Studio della Romagna Mineraria, Italy
Address for correspondence (email): [email protected]
Keywords: mining site, conservation, volunteers, community, landscape
Abstract:
This article is an account of the conservation of a sulphur mining site in Formignano,
Italy, where the 15 years experience of a volunteer association has prompted the
Town Hall to acquire and schedule the site, developing a cultural project aimed at
valorising and conserving its history, with research work and the involvement of local
community and distant affiliates.
Volunteers are sometimes the only guardians of complex sites, that otherwise would
be destined to a forgetful decay. The range of issue investing complex sites (with the
conservation of various evidences -material evidences, technological know how,
landscape and community significance and memory- and with a landscape, where
natural and human historical interaction needs a sensible, integrated approach) is
nevertheless difficult to be dealt with in these situations, mainly due to a lack of action
planning, funds and basic premises to work.
This often leads to episodic interventions on the site’s fabric, which may contrast with
standard conservative procedures, but are the only available actions to avoid further
decay.
What is to be faced is the issue of an high financial investment needed to repair/preserve the site from total physical decay and the volunteer cultural activity
seems to be the only affordable means of valorisation and conservation of a site’s
significance, often with a underlying awareness of any physical preservation being an
unachievable goal.
Brief description of the site and its development
This presentation is a brief account of the conservation of a sulphur mining site in
Northern Italy and of the twenty years activity of a voluntary association that has developed a cultural project on it. Formignano mining site is located in the outskirt of
Cesena, in Emilia Romagna Region and is part of the 2nd largest sulphur deposit in
Italy (after Sicily), a specific geological formation of sulphur and bitumen clay layers
(Miocene Era). The mining activity in the area has been going on since Roman times
until the 20th century (Figure 1): and has involved several mines: 21 in the area were
active in the 2nd half of the 19th century (Figure 2), when the local sulphur production
Proceedings of the International Conference BigStuff 2007: Beyond Conservation
- Industrial Heritage Management (www.bergbaumuseum.de/web/BigStuff07)
Title: Are we just ‘hooking up’ to machines a no-life-expectations patient?
The challenges of cultural significance conservation when physical fabric preservation is an everpostponed goal. A perspective.
Author(s): Vania Santi, Società di Ricerca e Studio della Romagna Mineraria, Italy
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took over due to the development of the chemical industries and became highly relevant on national level (in 1880 sulphur was the 1st income of the new Italian State)
and on international level, being the 2nd world producer (after Sicily).
In the 19th century, the activity, financially and technologically supported also from
abroad (France and UK mainly), and its industrial production system impacted deeply
the area and its agriculture-based economy (giving input to subsidiary and subsequent industries), the landscape (pollution, infrastructures, modification of geological
contours) and most of all the social texture of the area, changing the traditional life
setting and producing relevant migratory fluxes of workers (incoming from other regions and outgoings, especially in critical phases, towards other European countries
and to South and North America). It also prompted the first social protests that have
been the first steps for the creation of workers’ cooperative societies, for which this
region would have a relevant history in the 20th century.
The activity slowly but inevitably decreased from the beginning of the 20th century,
mainly due to the impact of low-price sulphur from the US on the international market,
leading to the progressive closing of all mines. The remnants of this activity are today
almost disappeared, scattered in the land and scarcely visible (Figure 3). Formignano
mine wasn’t the most relevant but is one of the two best preserved in the area, as the
last to close down (Figure 4).
After the closing in 1962, the mining company sealed the main shaft, had the main
external structures (roofing and chimneys) on the melting plants torn down (Figure 5)
and moved the reusable material (tracks, wagon, doors) to the nearby mine, that was
to close two years later. The site was sold to a private owner. Slag heaps were then
used as quarry for fill-in material in construction works (mainly for the highway crossing the area) and some buildings as warehouses.
Moreover, the last years of activity (work force reduction, emigration and accidents)
left in the community a general desire to forget all the difficulties and the harshness:
the mining was a past to be forgotten.
The site as heritage resource (Figure 9)
Voluntary society set up. During the 80ies, a first awareness of the importance of recording the site’s history arose. Besides few studies by geologists, there were no
published sources on the subject: oral memories, photographs and written documents started to be collected by people who in 1987 created the “Società di Ricerca
e Studio della Romagna Mineraria”, a no-profit volunteer’s society (with ex-miners)
for the research and interpretation of the mining heritage in the area.
Aims & Policies: research, site development, community involvement & education.
Research: from oral interviews to archival research, “from oblivion to pride” (Figure
10). The recording of interviews with ex-miners was one of the starting points. It revealed two facts: firstly, that in 20 years of silence so much was already lost, in terms
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of memories and people: ‘ a huge library of memories was gone forever’ (PierPaolo
Magalotti, society founding member); secondly, that people were diffident to talk, not
used to be asked about their work in the mine until they perceived it was something
‘worth to be remembered’ (as said by one ex-miner at the end of his account) and
also useful for extra research. This sets out the research method followed: the oral
memories have been the starting point for further research into public archives (law
courts especially). The development of the industry and most of all the history of
many people otherwise forgotten have been taken to light, leading to specific events
and publications.
Site development (Figure 11). In the 90ies the focus was on the development of the
area as heritage site, the restoration of the buildings and the acquisition of machinery
from other mines. A project has been made for an open-air mining park for the interpretation of the mining heritage in the whole area and with leisure and commercial
activities aimed at a sustainable development. In 1999 the area has been purchased
by the Town Hall and listed by the Ravenna Superintendence as heritage asset of
‘historical interest’ and also ‘by default’, being a public property dated more than 50
years.
Local community involvement & education: educational activities, significant events,
internet & emigration (Figure 12). The society was also aimed at raising the local
community awareness and involvement, through educational activities (beside university, particularly rewarding the collaboration with primary and secondary level
schools) and significant events for the community linked with the mining site in different ways: the annual miner fair, site guided visits, temporary exhibits, commemorative events of different types (miner monument, communal dinner on S. Barbara day,
commemoration of mining accidents victims, a theatre play sourced from oral interviews).
Also, a periodical newsletter is sent to society members (approximately 400); the
website has been in some cases a useful tool for broadening the involved community,
as it has been the first step for descendants of emigrated miners, from America and
Europe, to get in touch again with their roots, eager to reconstruct their family history.
When dealing with industrial heritage, emigration is a common theme and we realised it holds a great communicative potential: the attitude of emigrants towards their
distant home country- if conveyed and shared - seems able to prompt and strengthen the local community identity and sense of place.
What to be preserved? (Figure 13)
The site is on 90 hectares field and includes buildings (for administration, production
and residential for mine employees) (Figure 6) and melting plants (Figure 7,8). Its
conservation presents wider complex issues, as many as the different evidences to
be preserved:
 Tangible (buildings, machinery, technological know-how; documents, images, audio and video recordings); most of all a ‘cultural landscape’ where the interaction
of natural and human factors, characteristic of mining sites, needs to be ad-
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dressed in a comprehensive way and highlighted (Figure 14). Our attention was
slowly drawn to the fact that polluted and derelict landscape around, burnt by the
sulphuric acid at the time, was undergoing an amazing renaturalization, with an
unusual rich variety of flora.
 Intangible (memories and community attachment & identity).
Risks and factors affecting the site‘s significance (Figure 15)
The main issue concerning the site is the decay of the fabric (due to environmental,
biological and man-made causes), deeply affected by spot-maintenance limited to
episodic interventions, not structural nor comprehensively planned. The risk of loss
of fabric and information is increasing day by day, putting at risk the possibility at all
of its physical preservation.
LACK OF FUNDS. The main issue is a ‘chronic’ unavailability of funds for comprehensive intervention and development of the site, notwithstanding this objective has
been included in the Town Development Plan every year since 2000. The estimated
investment amount today to approximately 7 millions euros.
- WHAT IS FINANCIALLY REASONABLE WHEN INVESTING IN HERITAGE?
This question is raised in cases where a huge investment is at stake. Due to limit of
this paper, it is not possible to detail the issue here: to sum up, for the cultural significance of the site and its ‘the public value’ (Kate Clark), social and economical benefits (in an area that has a good life quality and economy and has also started to be
targeted as cultural tourism destination), our society still feels the urgency and the
worth of the investment for this site.
Beside the financial problem - a common one- we developed an awareness of other
issues (Figure 16):
LACK OF ACTION & EXISTING RESOURCES PLANNING. No planning has led the
Town Administration to grant investments to minor episodic initiatives leaving unsolved other basic deficiencies, like availability of premises to work and for collection
storage (all collections are divided into public archives or private houses, making difficult to research or to identify research gaps). Beside a small support from the town
administration, the activity of the association and its expenses are mainly covered
through annual subscriptions, fund-raising on specific projects and personal resources & skills; any smaller initiative becomes a fund raising action: from the newsletter preparation to events organization, participation to projects and conferences.
On the association side, action planning is made difficult, especially in the long term,
as there is no guarantee of available amount of resources, time and money.
COLLABORATION with LOCAL AUTHORITIES. Along the years, the association has
been involved in the decision making process on specific events related to the site;
Town Administration has been responsive on several cultural proposals by the association and its contribution is partly valued. Nevertheless, collaboration may vary according to the moment, to the interest of the specific public administration responsible
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and to generic bureaucracy problem (quite often public administrators have to be
chased to give an authorization or a permit that, in a proper structure, would be
standard routine). As the volunteers society remains an outsider, an independent organization that works on a public site, the feeling is often of being treated as a disturbing external element.
WHAT TYPE OF COLLABORATION? “Take it or leave it”: this seems often the attitude towards the civic societies taking care of public sites and facing the public administration inability to adjust a sustainable collaboration. The stricter health and
safety regulations are a good example, being a common critical issue for mining sites
and, with the decay of the fabric, a higher risk to face for guided visits and events that
are held on volunteers’ liability, while public administration tends to avoid any responsibility as much as possible.
COMMITMENT OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION TO HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT AS
A WHOLE: inaction = episodic interventions. Motivation is the fuel of any voluntary
activity and is what is put at test not only by what are perceived as un-kept promises
of a financial investment for the site development, but also by the commitment of the
public administration to its historic environment as a whole and whose inaction sometimes causes more irreversible changes than any short-term intervention on the site.
- ARE REVERSIBLE CHANGES, AS ADVISED BY GENERAL CONSERVATION
POLICIES, A LUXURY?
Minor episodic works have been taken forward on minor structures on the site. The
St. Barbara chapel - miners’ patron- has been completely renovated: the seeming
disregard to authenticity in the intervention was due not to disrespect but to available
work force and skills and to the priority aim of using the premise for community worship. In this case, the relevant community value attributed to the artefact – with respect to its informative value - led to an irreversible choice, that is still considered
acceptable.
COOPERATION WITH HERITAGE INSTITUTIONS. The collaboration with heritage
institutions may vary, principally depending on personal relationships. In many cases,
heritage institutions of the public sector have difficulties in acknowledge external or
independents organisations. For example, while doing historical research at the regional mining office archive, no reduction of the high fares and no possibility of having the documents available outside standard (and very limited) opening hours were
granted to our society, even if the research was aimed at the site study, not for ‘private’ purposes. Institutions seem willing to have volunteers working for them, but often finds more ‘challenging’ and hard to work in partnership with them.
TO SUM UP (Figure 17): TO WORK IN PARTNERSHIP (state /local administrations/heritage institutions/volunteers and community) seems to be crucial and should
be addressed as a priority in order to define what we may call ‘a mixed management’, with civic societies having a more consistent advisory role and where public
resources support who is already at work on heritage sites.
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Why is partnership crucial for heritage sector?
1. VOLUNTEERS DIFFUSION IN HERITAGE SECTOR: Italy case. In many European countries the conservation and management of the industrial heritage already relies on the action of volunteers, civic societies and no-profit organisations,
without whom many sites would have been lost. An international framework is being set up trying to create a link among no profit societies working in heritage field
in Europe (E-faith). In Italy, the voluntary sector has always played an important
role since ‘60ies, in signalling emergency cases and quite often substituting the
absent central state. By a 2003 study, approx 21.000 volunteers associations
(825.000 members) exist in Italy: of these, approx 14% in the heritage sector, increased of 40% from 1995. Notwithstanding this, and with few exceptions, only
recently (from ‘90ies onwards) a growing attention and some financial support
have been granted by State laws to heritage volunteers societies. This hopefully
will prompt a detailed report on the field (as in UK) and the collaboration at local
levels, leading to active work tables.
2. WIDER STEWARDSHIP FOR AN ENLARGED HERITAGE PATRIMONY. A wider concept of heritage calls for a wider stewardship, highlighting the active role of
communities in taking actions. Volunteers are the ‘interface’ of this link between
institution and community, being just the outposts of larger communities. To quote
Scott See from Michigan Tech Institute in his conference contribution, “the state
had realized it can’t own everything”. Or, we may say, it can’t manage everything.
Conclusions (Figure 18)
COMPLEX SITES=OFTEN MINOR CHALLENGES, BUT NUMEROUS. When dealing with big, complex site, challenges are often minor ones, but numerous and daily,
and could be overwhelming: these are often overcome by the deep commitment of
the volunteers, that it is truly amazing if one just step aside for a moment.
CHALLENGES= UNEXPECTED CHANCES. Going back to this paper title and issue
(“are we just postponing the inevitable decay of a significant site?”), we may conclude
that the cultural activity developed on the site, the attention paid to its transformation
and the connected challenges, have sometimes revealed as unexpected chances for
involving the community in their historic environment.
SITE AS EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY. If we look at landscape especially, the site
offers educational possibilities to engage public and scholars in educational projects
and observations of the alteration of a mining site after its activity ceases.
DECAY AS PART OF THE PICTURE. The site condition also accounts for an important part of its history: the abandonment period, the decay followed to an incredibly active and productive working phase, interpreted by the words of the voluntary
guides on site visits.
INPUT FOR FOCUSING ON CULTURAL ACTIVITY: “community involvement with
their historic environment: the most valuable heritage?” The lack of possibilities of a
comprehensive intervention on the fabric has been the input for focusing on the de-
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velopment of a quite active cultural activity, reviving the memory of people who have
lived and worked there and building up a network of people whose commitments towards their roots it is hopefully the valuable heritage that will be passed on to the
next generation.
In general, in the span of 20 years of the association activity, the memory of places
and work activity and a certain amount of information have survived, able to be
transmitted at least to the next generation: a goal that may be considered a valuable
and sometimes the only reachable as values constantly change and we cannot be
sure about the choices in heritage conservation of future generations, no matter if
objects or social history.
What and how do we preserve? (Figure 19)
That is the basic question at the chore of heritage conservation process. ‘where fabric is of cultural significance …its maintenance is necessary to retain that cultural significance’ (Burra Charter, art.16): our experience was forced to focus mainly on the
site’s related cultural meanings and associations and has led us to realize the central
role played by value and significance based conservation, that have to be seen as
process more than a given fact. It is the process of valuing, communicating values
and community involving that seems to be a watershed between what is acceptable
in any intervention from what is not.
So it is also worth to ask ourselves ‘HOW DO WE PRESERVE?”
“It’s all about us. We are the trustees of that inheritance” (EH, Power of Place)
(Figure 20)
Period pictures and maps from Biblioteca Malatestiana Library (Cesena) and
Ghirotti Library – (Cesena) archives. Figure 5: © Ugo Poggioli. All other pictures ©: Società di Ricerca e Studio della Romagna Mineraria.
References
AA.VV. (1986): Zolfi e zolfatari – Un’attività mineraria scomparsa del cesenate, Cesena: Wafra.
Clark K. (2001): Informed conservation, London: English Heritage
English Heritage (2000): Power of Place, London: English Heritage
European Landscape Convention 2000, Council of Europe in www.coe.int accessed
March 2006
Fairclough G. (2002): ‘Cultural landscape – view from Europe’, English Heritage Conservation Bulletin, March, 2002
Liceo Scientifico “A. Righi” and Magalotti P.P. (ed) (2004): L’inchiesta agraria Jacini
nel circondario cesenate, Cesena: Ed.Stilgraf.
Lolletti S. and Tozzi Fontana M. (eds) (1991): La Miniera. Tra documento storia e
racconto rappresentazione e conservazione, Bologna: Ed. Analisi.
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Magalotti P.P. (1998): Paesi di zolfo. Le miniere di zolfo nel Cesenate, Cesena: Soc.
Ed. Il Ponte Vecchio
Magrini L. (1991): Volontari della civiltà, in Archeologia Viva, 23 n.s., ottobre 1991,
pp. 74-5.
Menna S. (1998): Volontariato e Beni Culturali, Rivista del volontariato, n. 12 /1998.
Monti A. and Fagioli D. (2005): Le antiche solfare del Cesenate, Cesena:Il Ponte
Vecchio
Riva C. and Magalotti P.P. (2006): Fede e zolfo in Formignano, Cesena: Stilgraf
Scicli A. (1972): L’attività estrattiva e le risorse minerarie della regione Emilia, Modena: Poligrafico Artioli.
Veggiani A. (1979): Zolfi e zolfatari in Romagna, in AA.VV, 1979 Mestieri della terra e
delle acque, Milano, pp.: 96-107.
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are we just `hooking up` to machines a no-life

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