Offering youth the possibility to develop the artistic attitudes, crafting capabilities and to learn the difficult practice of restoration. That is the mission of the “Maria Luisa Rossi Artisans and Restorers School”, established in Torino in 1994, through an intuition by the Sermig of Ernesto Olivero, and thanks to the strong will of Maria Luisa Rossi, born to family of distinguished antiquarians in Torino, first President of the school.
The first site was located within the ancient walls of the once military warehouse, nowadays entitled Arsenal of Peace; in 2009 the school moved to a new location, about 2400 square meters, hosting 9 workshops dedicated to the art and restoration crafts, two classrooms for theory, an auditorium, a laboratory for applied chemistry, a computer science lab with audiovisual equipment, a classroom for technical drawing, a photography lab and a library.
The school is an Art Institute officially recognized and accredited as a Regional Training Agency by the Regione Piemonte, with the possibility of access to subsidies of the European Social Fund, thus being able to offer free professional training classes, releasing a certificate expendable on the job market in Italy and abroad.
Approaching the end of this difficult year, we meet Enrico Fossati, the Director of the Artisans and Restorers School, with the purpose of sending a wish of hope to all the students for the future. And we promise in 2021 to further exploit this so valuable training opportunity: “I’m grateful to you for focusing the necessity to recover also in a professional way, the ancient traditions of our past, of which Italy is rich and that should be preserved and supported.
Our country, our youth don’t deserve to loose this heritage and must remember that this legacy, of which we are so proud, is also due to skilled craftsmanship. We have to rediscover values that have been too much given for granted. The Sermig mission is based on openness and solidarity. This school represents the successful evidence of how being solidary means also to concretely offer instruments for a professional future enabling the achievement of one’s individual freedom.
We like to think to be able to attract like a magnet those who feel inside the desire to hand work and create, bringing out, firstly from their training and then from their work, all the prospective of beauty, which the world so much needs. From our school, the dearest wishes!’