Urbarïum Semen

Urbarïum Semen, the first publication of Frab's Publishing, is an emotional notebook to remember and carry with it the inner memory of the places we visit, built with the essential beauty of an eighteenth-century herbarium. Useful tool for those who decide to travel 3,000 kilometers away or visit the village of 3,000 souls a stone's throw from home, with the simplicity of the code created by its creator Virginia Viapiano (read here the interview released to Repubblica), allows those who use it to keep track, through objects and descriptions, of the cities and places visited. 

Urbarïum Semen is a blank notebook and an unconventional tourist guide, to be filled with the experiences lived on the road: it is a seed that must be grown. An object to keep able to make us remember our vibrations. 
Urbarïum was born to show a city with different eyes. Whether the reason is a simple walk or a sightseeing tour, the urban center requires a greater focus than what is usually devoted to it.

The phenomenon of tourism, today one of the main engines of the world economy, has grafted people with the so-called "tourist gaze", a superficial and often controlled way of visiting places. The points of greatest interest that characterize the image of a tourist destination are called markers and create congestion by moving that particular place away from the everyday context. Objects become simple subjects of a photo, often guided by the image presented through tourist channels, losing the aura and history accumulated over time.

The goal of Urbarïum is to focus attention on places, objects and atmospheres that characterize a city by moving away from the points of greatest influx, ensuring that certain areas are not reduced to tourist bubbles.
The notebook's inspiration is the concept of a herbarium, a tool that forces those who create it to observe and analyze their study objects, to understand and record them. And so it is also for the places in the city described by the urban planner: you have to experience them and feel them with all your senses.

Thus was born Urbarïum, the urban herbarium dedicated to those who want to leave the established routes and discover new corners. It is divided into botanical-inspired cards that serve to better imprint the places visited in the memory, improving their use.

Once completed it turns into an extremely personal object, serving as a travel diary and a reminder of one's adventure. With this tool, the tourist's impact on the city becomes less invasive and everyone can experience a tailor-made experience, the souvenir of which will be Urbarïum itself.

Author: Virginia Viapiano

Italian language
Dimensions: 13x20 cm
Number of pages: 108
Paper: © Favini crush mais 130 g for the inside and 350 g for the cover
Visible thread binding
Printing: off-set
Recycled paper pencil
© Favini Crush Mais, the paper on which it is printed, is produced using exclusively waste from industrial fruit processing. Citrus fruits, grapes, cherries, lavender, corn, olives, coffee, kiwi, hazelnuts and almonds, replace 15% of the cellulose, guaranteeing an intense and lively tactile sensation.