‘Featuring’ e collaborazione creativa. Maria Lai e Antonio Marras

The term «featuring» is currently used in music to indicate creative partnerships between artists from close or distant genres, with cultural as well as marketing goals. In this paper I propose to apply the concept of featuring to a type of collaboration that involves practitioners occupying different positions at the intersection of art and creative industries. I apply the notion to explore  the relationship between artist Maria Lai (1919-2013) and fashion designer Antonio Marras (1961) by surveying three exhibitions.The first two were jointly realized (Linzols de aigua, Alghero, 2003 and Fiumane di onde in cammino, Ulassai, 2006) whereas the third was curated by Marras after Lai’s death (Lai+Marras. Trama Doppia, Matera, 2019). In light of these interactions, the paper discusses the development of the collaboration, the impact on it of the different status of the players, its influence on their respective careers and the artistic output that sprung from it.