In Noi siamo qui, Italian printmaker and Verified POP Member Roberta Feoli De Lucia reimagines the drypoint plate not as a precious tool but as a site of shared authorship, erosion, and environmental witness. The work forms part of Pre Historia – Covo d’Artista, a collective project confronting the devastating PFAS contamination in the Veneto region. Here, Roberta uses the printmaking plate itself as a barometer of human presence, an object that gathers marks not from the artist’s hand, but from the rhythms of everyday life.
Drypoint, especially in its less-toxic contemporary adaptations, is often celebrated for its delicacy and careful craft. Yet Roberta subverts this expectation entirely. Rather than inscribing the plate in the studio, she placed a non-toxic drypoint plate in a communal area, allowing it to be stepped on, scuffed, dragged, and gradually abraded by passersby. The artwork unfolds through unintentional gestures: footsteps, pressure, friction. Over time, these incidental actions accumulate into a form of drawing—one authored as much by the public as by the artist.
“It matters that the plate is less-toxic,” Roberta notes, “because even the safest materials carry consequences once they move into the world.” In this project, sustainability does not equate to neutrality; the plate becomes a witness to the way our bodies interact with spaces, often without awareness of the marks we leave behind.
“Every footprint on the plate is a reminder that we leave marks even when we believe we’re simply passing through. The landscape keeps our traces; the water keeps our stories. Noi siamo qui makes those marks visible.”
The resulting print created from a plate intentionally allowed to deteriorate, captures this layered, communal choreography. Each accidental scratch speaks to the project’s underlying narrative: the slow build-up of invisible actions that shape both materials and ecosystems. It echoes the accumulation of PFAS contamination in Veneto, how small, repeated interventions, often unnoticed, can create permanent change.
Presented across Venice, Vicenza, and Bassano del Grappa in June 2025, Noi siamo qui invited audiences to look closely at what usually escapes perception. The final impression on Fabriano Tiepolo paper, printed with Akua Ink, becomes a tactile record of coexistence; part documentation, part memorial.
Technique
Drypoint on recycled food-grade cardboard
Printed with Akua Ink on Fabriano Tiepolo
Edition: Unique print, intentionally subjected to gradual destruction step by step
Printing and photography courtesy of the artist.
About the Artist
Roberta Feoli De Lucia is a printmaker and engraver whose practice bridges classical intaglio traditions with sustainable innovation. Originally from Italy, she studied Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino, followed by an Erasmus period in Granada. She later spent over a decade directing the printshop at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica Venezia, shaping its educational and technical direction.
Roberta is recognised as the first Italian artist to specialise in less-toxic printmaking at Zea Mays Printmaking (USA). A pivotal chapter that informs her ongoing research into safer, more responsible methods for contemporary printmakers. Today, she leads guided artist residencies in Venice and an annual summer residency in southern Italy, while also travelling internationally to teach and promote sustainable printmaking practices across studios, universities, and institutions.
Her work consistently examines the intersection of material sensitivity, environmental responsibility, and the lived experiences that become embedded, sometimes literally, within the surface of a plate.
Follow Roberta’s practice on Instagram
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