Le miniere di zolfo di Cabernardi

In the heart of the Marche Apennines, the Cabernardi sulphur mines - once the epicentre of labour attraction and the scene of important workers' struggles - now become a laboratory of thought and action for regeneration. The project, supported by Fondazione Cariverona, aims to reinterpret and reinterpret the disused mining heritage as a lever for a new social, economic and cultural development, based on participation and shared vision.

A facilitation and capacity-building process that involves citizens, organisations, businesses, associations and local operators in the definition of an integrated territorial strategy: participatory maps are constructed to identify spaces to be redeveloped, broader and more complex visions are opened up, public-private networks are activated, training is promoted, and creative methods are experimented to enhance the heritage by hybridising languages and tools.

The objective is ambitious: to generate significant and lasting changes, promoting a multifunctional, sustainable economy based on proximity relations.

A walkabout event has already been held in January 2025 - a creative co-narrative experience involving over 40 participants to stimulate discussion on the issues of the mine's heritage and future - and an active listening event conducted with the Open Space Technology technique in May 2025 - over 50 citizens, economic operators, and members of local associations have participated in a full day of work to imagine ‘Cabernardi Domani’ investigating themes related to infrastructural and digital connections, territorial networks, new generations, regenerative tourism, and green economies. In March 2025, a first peer mentoring meeting with experts also paved the way for the construction of a participatory archive as a living tool to connect memory, care and innovation.

Numerous events are organised with the Cabernardi community to compare with other Italian regeneration experiences, in a dialogue between territories, practices and visions to co-imagine opportunities for

development of emblematic places in the area. These moments are designed to activate a comparison, in order to arrive at the definition of “Cantieri di Futuro”: concrete feasibility plans, capable of attracting resources, activating energies and transforming a former mining area into a space generative of new values.