Respect for the unique nature and traditions of Sardinia passes through concrete gestures and the involvement of civil society and local communities, but on the island even the walls send messages of responsibility and pride, through muralism, which is a tradition in Sardinia for over 50 years. With this awareness and strengthened by a centenary commitment to the territory, the Ichnusa brewery has decided to embrace a local project that helps redevelop an area of the city of Cagliari . And it does so by supporting the Galleria del Sale, an open-air museum dedicated to contemporary muralism, through the maintenance and care of the area for the next 3 years of the 50 or more works signed by local, Italian and international muralists.
Ichnusa has thus returned to Cagliari to tell of the commitment to support the territory and, this time, it does so through the timeless language of the Sardinian mural tradition . In past years, the employees of the brewery have personally taken action, together with the local communities, to clean up waste from urban areas and beaches and have also used muralism to rediscover the hidden places and traditional arts and crafts of the island. And today the Sardinian capital becomes the stage for the bond that has always united Ichnusa beer and Sardinia.
Nature
The Salt Gallery is located in Cagliari, on the cycle path that connects the tourist port of Su Siccu with Viale la Palma, at the entrance to the Molentargius Park. It was built in 2014 on the initiative of the Urban Center Association, it houses over 50 murals and is establishing itself as a new point of interest for enthusiasts and tourists. For this reason, Ichnusa's support for its maintenance aims to preserve and grow this redevelopment project of urban spaces.
To seal the commitment of the Assemini brewery, a new work arrives to enrich the walls of the Galleria del Sale. It is entitled "Awakening", was created by Mauro Patta and evocatively represents the deep bond of the brewery to his island, a few kilometers from the place where the Ichnusa beer is produced.
The target
The project was carried out in collaboration with Urban Center, an interdisciplinary group of professionals who see in innovation and creativity the tools to create change and to generate improvement in the territories, which manages the Galleria del Sale, a space of expression for the muralists which offers the community the opportunity to enrich themselves with new works and methods of enhancing art and ensures that the territory is at the center of new possibilities for cultural exchange, requalification and innovation. The "Awakening" mural will also be included among the works of the "100 walls, 100 murals" initiative of the Political Pharmacy Association, which focuses on muralism to redevelop urban areas and color Sardinia by recalling its landscapes, traditions and culture.
«We wanted to return to the splendid setting of the city of Cagliari to tell once again how much our belonging to this island is a moment of pride for us. Our brewery has grown over the years and our beer is now appreciated throughout Italy, but this has never distracted us from our origins and that is why we wanted to pay this tribute to Sardinia. This year we wanted to collaborate with Urban Center, a reality which, like us, is strongly rooted in the area and is committed to making our island even more beautiful. Furthermore, the project does not end here, but sees us side by side with Urban Center for the next three years to guarantee and support the maintenance of the whole area», said Matteo Borocci, director of the Ichnusa Brewery.
The partners
«Galleria del Sale was born in 2014 as a public space that looks at art as a common and community good, not elitist but shared both in terms of participation and fruition of the works. The fact that this year Ichnusa has chosen to become part of this project, financing a work that will be added to the over 50 present is a source of enormous satisfaction for us : for the first time a company has chosen to support art public in the Gallery through a contribution that will help us carry out a three-year program. Ichnusa also chooses to look with us at the art of muralism as an instrument of innovation, a means for the care of public space, the diffusion of new cultural sensitivities, a vehicle for actions aimed at increasing the personal degree of affection for the place in order also to keep it alive, for who is there and for who will come. Galleria del Sale is therefore confirmed as the sum of social and artistic stratifications, the diachronic outcome of the action of several actors: we at Urban Center, institutions, individuals and now for the first time also a company that decides to support projects and actions in the area for the territory. In this way Galleria del sale keeps alive and at the same time, it also keeps alive the idea of art as a true res publica», declared Daniele Gregorini, curator of the Gallery and artistic director of Urban Center.
Development
The now national success of Ichnusa, which with Ambra Limpida reaches a new phase, has important and positive repercussions on the Sardinian economy, communities and employment. According to a study by Althesys, the joint presence of the brand and the Ichnusa brewery in Sardinia makes a contribution to the growth and well-being of the island - the so-called shared value - which has more than doubled in 4 years: around 455 million euros in 2019 , against 200 million euros in 2015 . This growth has brought benefits and employment to every stage of the supply chain, including direct, indirect and induced effects.
Around 100 people work in the Ichnusa brewery today, but its presence in Sardinia actually "touches" over 5,300 workers, more than double the 2,000 estimated in 2015, all directly or indirectly related to the production of beer, for a total salary paid along the supply chain of 137 million euros (corresponding to the average annual expenditure of nearly 3,000 Sardinian families).
