The “Civil Servants” project, curated by Micaela Deiana, was born from a survey of the artistic practices of an antagonistic nature carried out in Sardinia, aimed at formulating models of analysis, deconstruction and problematization of the current socio-political context. In this rich vein, on the ridge between activism and artistic research, the exhibition focuses in particular on those investigations which, over the last few years, have raised important environmental questions, fundamental for the future of the island.

The expression “ Civil Servant” it belongs to Anglo-Saxon culture and indicates the responsibility and profound civic sense with which state officials provide their service to the community of which they are part. The selected artists make this attitude a key element of their poetics, giving life to works, but above all actions, in which art becomes a tool of social criticism to raise awareness in the territory of the value of the common good.

Through the narratives of Leonardo Boscani, Riccardo Fadda, Pasquale Bassu and Eleonora Di Marino, the exhibition recounts in particular the effects of the occupation and exploitation of the land by industrial centers that characterized the so-called “Sardinian industrial renaissance” in the Sixties and the Seventies, and the critical tools with which today we try to deal with the political-economic failure of those development strategies and to start the difficult process of reconversion.

Leonardo Boscani (Sassari, 1961), active for years on the front of social criticism through artistic research projects, proposes Feasibility study for the breeding of semi-wild deer in the Monte Rosè area, “dystopian” work, curated by the A. Cicchiarelli Foundation, for the planning of a new development of the livestock sector in northern Sardinia parallel to the reclamation interventions of the chemical industry in the Porto Torres area.

Riccardo Fadda (Porto Torres, 1976), founder of the artistic collective AZ.Namusn.Art, presents a group of works from the series Anarchaeology , in which it critically addresses the theme of cultural heritage, inviting awareness of a renewed local identity that takes into account the conditions of the environment and the contradictions of the territory.

Pasquale Bassu (Nuoro, 1979), one of the new members of the Nuoro group “Seuna Lab”, gives rise to a performance entitled I have been, involving the public in a mutual exchange of services guaranteed by a banknote circuit created by the artist himself.

Eleonora Di Marino (Carbonia, 1990) presents Bethyl, a work included in the research of Spa – Soluzioni Per l’Ambiente, an ongoing project that highlights the contradictions of the “Red Mud” case, land protected from a landscape point of view although toxic, due to the presence of metal residues due to mining operations . The artist is part of the Giuseppe Frau Gallery collective, operating in Sulcis – Iglesiente.