Scuola Piccola Zattere presents its digital archive and a new publishing series, two tools conceived to convey an ongoing research trajectory, almost two years after the institution began its activities. The archival and publishing project has been developed in dialogue with Axis Axis — a Turin-based publishing house whose research focuses on transcription, real-time writing, translation and, more broadly, on the status of the textual document and its contextualisation.

The strategy proposed by Axis Axis for Scuola Piccola starts with a question: what does it mean to archive the work of an institution whose activities are primarily grounded in processes in progress — exhibitions, residencies, public events and research fellowships? The response has taken shape through two complementary tools, a digital archive and a publishing series, both rooted in the idea of a living archive capable of accompanying initiatives as they unfold, rather than simply preserving their final outcomes. The process-based nature of the School’s activities is particularly evident in its residencies and fellowships: their value does not lie solely in the finished work, but also in the time devoted to research, exchanges, attempts and detours, and in everything that would normally remain at the margins of documentation. Archiving the process therefore means acknowledging and making these stages visible as well, building an open structure that grows alongside the programme and whose materials can be revisited, brought into dialogue and reactivated over time.

The digital archive, developed in keeping with the institution’s visual identity designed by Giga Design Studio, collects and documents its activities through images, descriptions, audio and video recordings. Filters by format, author, type and keywords make it possible to navigate the contents and trace the Scuola's fields of enquiry over time, bringing out connections across different paths and initiatives.
The publishing series, on the other hand, takes the Scuola's projects as its starting point and develops an expanded account of them, bringing new voices alongside the original ones and offering theoretical, documentary and visual perspectives. Interviews, transcriptions, visual poetry and essays thus coexist in volumes that themselves become part of the archive. The first publications in the series are Geometrie del Possibile by Andrea Canepa and Il Fantasma di Pepper by Edoardo Lazzari.

The project developed in collaboration with Axis Axis will be presented on 24 September at 6 pm in a talk with Irene Calderoni (Artistic Director of Scuola Piccola Zattere), Matteo Milaneschi (Axis Axis / Nationhood), Edoardo Lazzari (former SPZ fellow and curator of the performing arts festival Il Fantasma di Pepper), with the participation of some of the authors of the publication: Annalisa Sacchi, Chiara Cecconello, Renato Grieco and Jacopo Giacomoni.