On Friday 27 September at 11 am, in the presence of the mayor of Porto Torres Massimo Mulas, the councilor for Culture Maria Bastiana Cocco and the civil, military and religious authorities of the territory, the exhibition "Ogni Nave ha bisogno di un porto" will be inaugurated, curated by the art historian and head of the Historical Memory Museums sector Baingio Cuccu. The project was born from the desire of the Municipality of Porto Torres, in collaboration with the Municipal Tourist Office and with the Historical Memory that manages the Tourist Office of the City, to increase knowledge of places with historical, cultural and archaeological value, especially sites that for various reasons cannot usually be visible to the public. The exhibition is set up in the archaeological site of the Roman port of the city which is located in the immediate vicinity of the maritime station. The works on display have as their theme the investigation into the concept of port both as a physical place but also as an imaginary place where life stories such as departures, arrivals, meetings, tragedies, salvations materialize. A place that in the imagination becomes poetic, melancholic, nostalgic, loved by artists and writers of all ages; again, port in a figurative sense as a point of arrival, conclusion of an activity or project, departure towards the future, beginning of a new path. Finally as a place that embodies refuge, safety, shelter from the storms of life.
The title refers to the ship understood as a man and the port as the world in which he lives his life. The exhibition is part of the activities provided by the Tourist Office within the scope of the Project of Archaeology, History, Culture and Environment of the Territory of Porto Torres for the promotion of sites of historical-cultural-artistic-tourist interest. Taking as a leitmotif the quote by Don Luigi Giussani "Research is absurd if it does not imply the existence of a port", 24 artists were invited to interpret the place and the concept of port through works that range across different techniques. This exhibition aims to highlight the enormous potential that can arise from projects that connect and dialogue between archaeological sites and the new languages of contemporary art. The exhibition develops as a real work of research, rediscovery and promotion of archaeological assets by staging a heterogeneous exhibition path, characterized by the co-presence of installations and small and large format works and by the constant dialogue between recently produced works and the archaeological context. The invited artists will be the protagonists of an exhibition that intends to tell the multiple natures of a place that has deep roots in the history of man and always implies new paradigms in the human imagination, adapting them to its time. The project includes among its partners the Municipality of Porto Torres, the Port Authority of Porto Torres, the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Provinces of Sassari and Nuoro, the Memoria Storica soc. coop. (as organizer) and the Academy of Fine Arts of Sassari "M. Sironi" which will participate with a representative of students and teachers.