For the sixth edition of Una Boccata d'Arte, a contemporary art project spanning the entire peninsula and conceived by the Elpis Foundation, the village of Burcei hosts a new work for Sardinia. Designed by Sara Persico (Naples, 1993) and curated by Anna Pirisi for Threes, the project is titled Nuù.
The Nuù project
In Sardinian, Nuù means both "stone" and "bond." In Burcei, where rock is an integral part of identity, voice and territory intertwine in a still-active memory. The improvised poems, "is mutetus," preserved in the sound archives, bear witness to a collective knowledge passed down through time.
The artist reworks these voices together with those of the community, creating a choral and layered sound performance. In dialogue with her, sculptor Alison Darby etches the stone with signs inspired by sound, transforming it into a visual score. The project generates a new connection between song and material, between past and present, creating a living trace that becomes part of the community's living archive.
Finissage and donation to the community
For the closing of Nuù, the audio cassettes become a gift and an archive for the community. They are placed in dialogue with Fabio Talloru's Acusmatopie, which reactivates lost places with material sounds collected from vanished architecture. These two practices intertwine voice and stone, memory and landscape, generating a new connection with Burcei. The cassettes, titled Sara Persico – Nuù, contain 10 audio tracks, the result of the artist's fieldwork, recording local sounds and voices. These same tracks can be listened to digitally by visiting the small church of Sant'Isidoro, forming a collective sound archive reworked by Sara and donated to the community. The artist explains: "Nuù is a project that unites collective memory, territory, and poetry in a symbolic knot. A living archive born from listening, which creates a sonic portrait of Burcei—between voices, stone, and the breath of nature that surrounds it." Thanks to: Dino Serra and the entire municipal administration of Burcei, and the folk group “A passo antigu”.
The artist
Sara Persico (Naples, 1993) is a sound artist, composer, and performer. Her practice, centered on voice and sonic experimentation, is nourished by the physicality and spatiality of sound, elements that guide and shape her creative process.
A Breath of Art: the project
Una Boccata d'Arte is a contemporary art project conceived in 2020 by Marina Nissim, President of the Elpis Foundation. It is the only initiative in Italy that operates nationwide, offering a cultural itinerary across the country through the languages of contemporary art. The format is based on the involvement, each year, of 20 Italian and international artists, invited to work in 20 small towns with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, one from each of Italy's 20 regions. The selected artists come from diverse countries, cultures, and linguistic backgrounds, with a focus on younger generations and the ability to propose projects designed to engage local communities in an inclusive and participatory manner, generating new shared imaginations. Each project includes a period of residency in the area to design site-specific works, the result of a process of exploring vernacular traditions, listening to artisanal knowledge, and pre-existing energies.
(Unioneonline)