Combining memory and contemporary art. From living art to the aestheticisation of a historic centre: the case of Maria Lai in Aggius

Abstract

This essay aims to tell the story of an intriguing experiment that took place in a small town in northern Sardinia: Aggius. The purpose of this account is to invite reflection on the paradoxical effects of ambiguity that a significant urban regeneration project—one based on heritage preservation and capable of combining memory and contemporary art—can produce if sacrificed on the altar of tourism.  What we intend to recount is a story that  shows us precisely how the long-standing structures and memorial heritage that characterize the uniqueness of a small historic town can, on the one hand, trigger—through a recombination of tradition and innovation—an interesting process of collective reappropriation of the heritage of a territory’s history and traditions; on the other hand, simultaneously become elements that generate a process of “intensive exploitation of specific resources, formed by deposits accumulated over time” (Boltanski, Esquerre, 2019, p. 77), which risks, if not carefully managed, taking on trivializing and commodifying traits.