By Giulia Piceni.
CubaLab is a project about creativity, upcycling and the essence of life. Each Master’s program at Istituto Marangoni Firenze provides students with the opportunity to participate in two industry projects over the nine months of their postgraduate course. These projects are collaborative efforts with luxury companies in their field of study, promoted by the school and carried out as a group.
One of the most recent and notable collaborations involved the bag brand CubaLab and the community of San Patrignano. This place is a renowned Italian rehabilitation centre located near Rimini that offers a holistic approach to drug addiction treatment, combining vocational training, education and community living. In this partnership orchestrated by Tod’s, the residents of San Patrignano played a pivotal role in assembling bags, using materials provided by the leather brand CubaLab.
For the students enrolled in the Master’s programme in Styling & Luxury Management, the industry project involved creating visual content for CubaLab’s Instagram account. Their task was not only to showcase the final products, which were tropical-inspired raffia bags, through videos, reels and gifs but also to capture the intricate process of creating these bags by the young women during their daily workshops at San Patrignano.
However, it was challenging to convey the essence of both the product and the emotional atmosphere of San Patrignano through mere photographs. Therefore, visiting the laboratory where all the magic is created became essential for gaining a deeper understanding and making progress in the project.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look, revealing the emotional significance that this project held for each participant.
Visiting San Patrignano to discover CubaLab
In the early morning at dawn, the students from the Master’s course, and even one from the Undergraduate Multimedia Arts who came to help with the recording process, set off from Florence and embarked on a long journey that brought them to a peaceful location in the hills of Emilia Romagna.
One crucial step in bringing the project to life was the students’ direct engagement with the workshop where these bags are crafted. This decision was made not only to obtain material for various videos and reels but, more importantly, to immerse the students in the essence of life within a community like San Patrignano. Understanding the significance of the residents’ dedication to crafting these objects was paramount.
Conducting field research was essential to capture the subtle details and atmospheres that might be missed in a third-party account. It was important to establish a connection, even within the limitations of a single day, with the young women in the bag workshop. As they worked on tasks like cutting leather, perfecting shoulder straps, and affixing CubaLab pressed leather patches to the raffia bags, the workshop atmosphere grew increasingly welcoming. Gradually, fleeting glances and tentative smiles blossomed into heartfelt conversations and the sharing of genuine stories. It was only through these authentic connections that narratives unfolded, intertwining past and present and illuminating a path towards a future brimming with hope, even outside the San Patrignano community.
The Value of Care
After experiencing such unforgettable encounters, it was not easy for the participants to return to the project’s more factual reality. However, the determination to portray that reality as accurately as possible was the driving force behind what the students were accomplishing. To develop their concept, the students involved in the project felt an urgent need from the beginning to focus on the concept of “care” in their work.
One of the videos produced at San Patrignano highlighted the care given to both individuals and objects. Care is also a process that the residents of San Patrignano undergo in order to become new, rejuvenated individuals ready for a more balanced life. During workshops, the girls from the bag’s laboratory openly discussed this as the students sought to understand them in all their complexity. Conversations, common passions, shared interests and daily challenges formed authentic connections, which the students aimed to capture through the social media and video material they created.
The final video, created with the help of students from the Multimedia Arts course, incorporated the sounds of the laboratory – a blend of hammering, brushstrokes, and needles perforating the leather. The video effectively captured the meticulous care involved in the bag-making process and the healing essence these objects convey to those who create them. By alternating colourful tones with black and white frames, the video encapsulated both the students’ experience and the resilient atmosphere of the San Patrignano laboratory, where the future of many young women takes shape.
