It is called “Tree of Life – Albero della Vita” and it is the new, large and colorful mural by Giorgio Casu that now greets those arriving at the airport in Cagliari. For some a welcome, for others a goodbye. For all an extremely iconic work that characterizes the airport with the unmistakable style of a Sardinian artist who set out from here to discover the world.
The radical transformation of an area of the Cagliari airport that has so far been undervalued stems from the desire to use the airport spaces, whether inside or outside the terminal, to promote the area, also by giving visibility to the artistic production that is its most lively and sincere expression. Art, now at home in the main Sardinian airport that in recent years has hosted numerous exhibitions and installations, is one of the ways that Cagliari Airport has chosen to communicate its belonging to an Island, Sardinia , with a strong and identifying cultural tradition.
At the same time, relying on established artists like Giorgio Casu, who has been exhibiting in major events and galleries in the United States and around the world for years, allows the airport and Sogaer, its management company, to create connections with distant places and cultures that, it is hoped, can be reached with a trip starting, ideally and concretely, from Cagliari Airport . And if Sogaer's mission remains the typical one of developing the network of air connections from Southern Sardinia to Italy, Europe and beyond, the ambition to create, with flights and with its own initiatives, a cultural network between distant communities through flights and art is more than legitimate.
The Sardinian mural tradition has deep roots like those of Casu's Tree of Life. Its shoots are the many island artists who reinterpret codes and symbols of the past in a contemporary and personal way, updating them and making them accessible to an increasingly vast and heterogeneous public . Giorgio Casu is one of these, at ease with his works in the United States as in Sardinia, in the center of New York in Times Square, as at the Amsicora Stadium of the legendary Cagliari championship and, now, also at Cagliari Airport.
The news was commented with satisfaction by the CEO of Sogaer Fabio Mereu: «Like the mural Rombo di Tuono at Amsicora, the Tree of Life of Casu, painted on a large portion of the facade of the airport, will become a characterizing and distinctive element of Cagliari Airport . We wanted this mural to represent the symbol of our ability to grow and innovate starting from the tradition and high professionalism of the people who form the Sogaer Group, aware of the important role of catalyst of the economic and cultural development of the territory that Cagliari Airport has now and will have increasingly in the future. We activate new connections, we create new links, so that this will be an impulse for new exchanges, new businesses, new opportunities».
(Online Union)