Maria Lai and Ulassai: How an Artist Transformed a Village

Ulassai is a village of 1,200 inhabitants perched on the limestone plateaus of Ogliastra. It could have remained in obscurity like dozens of other Sardinian hamlets. Instead, thanks to a woman born here in 1919, it has become a landmark of Italian and international contemporary art.

Who Was Maria Lai

Maria Lai was born in Ulassai on 27 September 1919. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome under Marino Mazzacurati, then in Venice. She returned to Sardinia carrying a European education but rooted her work in the deepest strands of Sardinian culture: bread, weaving, oral tradition, and myth.

Her artistic language is unmistakable: thread as a metaphor for human connection, bread as ancestral memory, sewn books as poetic objects. She was never a trendy artist — she followed her quiet path for decades before gaining recognition.

The Belated Recognition

For a long time Maria Lai was a figure on the margins of the Italian art system — too Sardinian for Rome, too contemporary for Sardinia. Only in the final years of her life (she died in Cardedu in 2013) did she receive institutional recognition: the major retrospective at Rome's GNAM in 2019, six years after her death, definitively confirmed her importance.

Legarsi alla Montagna — 1981

On 28 September 1981, Maria Lai carried out an artistic gesture in Ulassai that anticipated by decades the concept of relational art. A 27-kilometre blue ribbon wound through the entire village, tying its houses together and connecting the settlement to the mountain above.

How It Worked

Every inhabitant of Ulassai took part in the work. The ribbon passed through windows, balconies, and doors. Families could alter its course: those at peace with a neighbour knotted the ribbon festively; those carrying an unresolved conflict let it fall unknotted. The result was a visible map of the village's bonds and tensions.

It was not a work of art created by an artist and contemplated by an audience. It was a collective act, in which the entire community became both artwork and author at the same time.

Maria Lai said: "You cannot make art without the complicity of others."

La Stazione dell'Arte

In 2006, in the former narrow-gauge railway station — the Trenino Verde that once linked Mandas to Arbatax — the Stazione dell'Arte opened, a museum dedicated to Maria Lai's work and to contemporary art.

The Collections

• Works by Maria Lai — the world's most complete collection: sewn books, loaves, looms, installations
• Environmental art — site-specific works by international artists installed across the territory
• Archive — documentation of Legarsi alla Montagna and other collective actions
• Works in dialogue — contemporary artists invited to respond to Lai's practice

The museum was designed by Tonino Casula Ollocco and integrates with the landscape of plateaus and limestone that surrounds Ulassai.

Hours and Info

• Open year-round (closed Mondays)
• Admission: €7 full, €5 reduced
• Guided tours by appointment: +39 0782 787220

Works in the Territory

Ulassai also hosts a series of permanent environmental works distributed throughout the village and surroundings:

• Il volo — a labyrinth of canvases and threads on the edge of the cliff
• La casa de sos leones — a stone and ceramic installation
• Fiabe intrecciate — murals along the streets of the historic centre
• La teleferica — an environmental sculpture in dialogue with the limestone walls

A walk through the village becomes a spontaneous art trail — no ticket required, open to all.

Why Visit Ulassai

Ulassai proves that a tiny village can become a cultural hub without betraying its own identity. Maria Lai did not bring art in from outside: she extracted it from within — from tradition, from memory, from people.

How to get there: Ulassai is reached from Tortolì in about 40 minutes (SS 125 to Lanusei, then SP 7). There is no direct public transport — a car is recommended.