Wooden ships
by Fabio D’Arsiè
portfolio special mention call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2025', 2025
Category: Nature, Environment and Perspectives
“We are spirits shrouded in water, we are whale skeletons bleached by the sun, we are dead trees where cormorants dry their wings in the light.”
A visual investigation of a place suspended in time: a cemetery of abandoned boats along the waters of the Sile River in Casier. Here lie the burci, ancient cargo vessels that for centuries played a vital role in the economy of the Veneto region.
Abandoned in the 1970s following the crisis triggered by the colza oil scandal and the growing dominance of road transport, these boats are now silent relics, absorbed by vegetation and water. Their slow decay tells the story of the end of a productive system and of a working culture tied to the river, gradually replaced by new industrial and infrastructural logics.