“When everyone expected to see me at work, I invite everyone to get to work” said Maria Lai.

According to the philosophy of both the Sardinian artist and Stefano Boeri, who have made sharing and participation an essential component of their work, the Call La frana is an artistic process that becomes a moment of shared reflection. It was in fact launched as part of the online exhibition ii albero (Be Tree) – close to inauguration (read here) –, which will retrace, for the first time in Sardinia, the work and philosophy of Boeri in dialogue with the works and poetics of Maria Lai.

The set of contributions received constitutes a choral story and a composite reflection on the landslides that characterize our age: from climate change to environmental disasters, from growing inequalities to the depopulation of entire territories, up to the current health crisis. A sort of archive of memory, a common heritage of ideas, thoughts and points of view, from which to start again to ‘mend the various fractures of the world’.

The most representative works among those arrived can be seen here. 

Among the more than sixty contributions, some prestigious names of the Italian cultural and artistic panorama, including Valerio Berruti, Stefano Boeri, Matilde Cassani, Loris Cecchini, Leone Contini, Flavio Favelli, Giovanni Gaggia, Marcello Maloberti, Elena Mazzi, Alessandro Melis, Narcisa Monni, Marzia Migliora, Matteo Sanna, Eugenio Tibaldi, Luca Trevisani, Francesca Randi,  Vedovamazzei e Virginia Zanetti.

Participation was also record-breaking in terms of sharing – remotely, given the problems that cultural institutions had to face due to the pandemic. With La frana, the bond and dialogue with the users of the Stazione dell'Arte through the Internet has been strengthened: it is the call of art, understood by Maria Lai as “flashing light in the darkness of the world”.

After activating alternative cultural programming on its multimedia channels, from Monday 18 January 2021 the Museo Stazione dell’Arte di Ulassai dedicated to the art work of Maria Lai has reopened to the public: it allows visitors to access its spaces, safely and in compliance with the instructions provided by the authorities in charge , to admire and interact – again in presence – with the Maria Lai. Fame d’infinito (Hunger for infinity) exhibition.

“Based on physical and intellectual accessibility” explain Davide Mariani, director of  the Stazione dell’Arte, “the exhibition allows the viewer to grasp, through the use of different senses (visual, sound, tactile), the value of Maria Lai's work. The artist has been able to transform, with skilful mastery, his daily life into an experience of a universal character, creating works starting from the reinterpretation of myths, stories and legends of his land”.