Dall’isola carcere al museo partecipativo. La musealizzazione dell’Asinara fra patrimoni difficili, turisti e comunità

The thesis, part of a collaborative project between the Asinara National Park and the University of Sassari, presents a hypothesis for the musealization of Asinara’s tangible and intangible heritage. A penal colony and a quarantine station since the end of the Nineteenth Century, the island has a complex and controversial history. In the Seventies, it became a high-security prison for some of the most infamous mafiosi and political terrorists. In addition, Asinara’s penitentiary has been at the center of controversies due to the violent treatment of the inmates and the consequent riots, until 1997, when the prison closed and the National Park was born. The research examines Asinara’s historical, institutional and natural heritage starting with the first inventory of the park’s objects collection, which includes the colony’s historical artifacts. Using a transdisciplinary approach that combines theories and practices from museology and heritage studies, the dissertation understands Asinara’s legacy as a controversial heritage, a taxonomy that refers to those tangible and intangible memories that create social tension in the present. Taking into account the complexity of the topics connected to the island, encompassing the controversies of the penal system, the exclusive and inclusive aspects of collective memory, and the urgency of green tourism, the Asinara Museum has been imagined as a participative institution that engages actively with the audience using different strategies and media. These include contemporary art, which since World War II, has dealt with conflicted and painful heritage, mediating troubled memories and including diversified communities through constructive and healing practices and discussions. In the Asinara cultural and natural frame, a participative institution could stand as an open and dynamic reality to remember and rethink the past but also to address the issues of the present.