In the Sulcis Iglesiente, in the south-western part of Sardinia, in Villamassargia, there is a centuries-old garden of olive trees grafted by the inhabitants between 1300 and 1600 called "S'Ortu Mannu", the large vegetable garden. Inside the park of over thirteen hectares, live more than seven hundred centuries-old olive trees entrusted to the care of the families of the town; among them stands one of the oldest olive trees in Europe called "Sa Reina": The Queen. With a trunk circumference of over 16 meters, its green foliage and gnarled branches, “Sa Reina” defies time, seasons and history. Mother, brave guardian, defends the territory and what little remains of the ancient boundless domain.

Sardinia is often a feminine tale, which has its roots in Prehistory to reach the threshold of our time with an inestimable baggage of ancient knowledge. First goddesses, then queens, then artists the journey continues, the weapons change but the principle of resilience remains unchanged, as if it were genetically transmitted, even when, the attentive eye, focuses beyond the sea on the world with its contemporaneity.

The Reinas exhibition collects and presents the works of four of the most important Sardinian artists, three generations compared and a focus on production from the 70s to the present day.
We are talking about four small anthologies dedicated to Maria Lai, Zaza Calzia, Rosanna Rossi and Lalla Lussu interconnected to underline points of contact and diversity of research. The path is traced by as many keywords that want to suggest the characterizing theme of the selected nuclei along a narrative that is also discovery, surprise, reflection, in a time that flows in different rhythms to create personal and shared experiences.

So here is Maria Lai's needle pulled from a sewn wall to “bind and connect” together the four themes of the Word, Rhythm, Color and Sign as selected chapters from a single book. Immersing ourselves in the spirituality of Lai, in the playful irony of Calzia, in the sunny colors of Lussu, in the aesthetic rigor of Rossi, we will discover unusual research experiences that return an updated territory, far from the most common stereotypes, where an island is not isolation but a space for cohabitation. in which subtle references between past and present are clearer, less disturbed by white noises. On the island the silences smell of eternal, which is why it is easier to listen.

Through four of the most well-known artists of the Sardinian panorama, it is intended to identify a common path that returns the ability to treat peculiar elements of the history, culture, nature of the Sardinian territory to return them to the community elaborated in contemporary languages having the extraordinary ability to cross geographically the “regional” borders to become an international collective heritage.