THE MURATS MUSEUM, ITS COLLECTION, ITS TEMPORARY ACTIVITIES

The MURATS
The Regional Museum of Sardinian Textile Art (MURATS) is situated in the village of samugheo. it was founded with the purpose to retrieve and preserve the historical memory of textile art in sardinia. its activity is divided between the display of its collection and the realization of temporary events and exhibitions. The collection lives in symbiosis with the museum, it is its own identity its present; furthermore, it is through its collection that the museum propagates its basic message and finds the reasons to deal with other exhibitions and to create useful ways to analyse the today’s
textile production. The collected works form a significant corpus of artefacts from different areas of the island, so that you can easily immerse in a fascinating and multifaceted world made of blankets, saddlebags and clothing dating from the end of the eighteenth until the first half of the twentieth century, tools and various instruments used for the production of the precious textile works, about 400 testimonies of no-longer used techniques. albeit bearers
of ancient codes and symbols, in the past but also in today’s concept these artefacts were considered essentially everyday objects with a practical function. They find a “noble” placement in the halls of the museum, where a
transfiguration mechanism transforms them into the custodians of a small portion of identity, and where the single parts, living side by side, create a comprehensive narrative. since the story is not reduced to a single interpretation, the artefacts need to “move” within the museum, to live new combinations and new exchanges, revealing the everchanging truths and avoiding a purely didactic representation. That is the way the collection can welcome any kind of visitors, creating affection and stimulating even the most experienced guests. The inclusive story told by mUraTs is complemented through the realization of temporary events – exhibitions, workshops, conferences, seminars, debates, researches and studies –, which are open windows on the new textile trends offering the instruments to establish a more intense and constructive relationship between culture and territory. The main purpose of all these activities are in fact to change the museum from a mere conservation place to an “observer animator” capable of documenting the present but also identifying and distinguishing the long-lasting changes in the artefact sector. as a result, the museum does not only propose the visitor “memories” of past traditions but is a formidable medium that connects past, present and future through the relationship between the collection and the collateral activities.

Finally, the reason why a museum is set in a certain place and in a precise cultural dimension, explains the relationship between the institution, the collection and the territory, outlining the message that, beyond the suggestion for any individual artefact, conveys the productive and cultural backgrounds of a specific social group. according to this vision, mUraTs was not born by chance in samugheo, being one of sardinia’s most important villages for the textile production: through its collection and its vitality it represents a deep cultural and social experience, lived through the timeless tale of sardinian weaving.

CONTACTS:

email: museomurats@gmail.com

phone:  0783 631052