Sabir

In its 38th year since its founding, Arte Sella presents Sabìr, an installation conceived by artist Velasco Vitali for the art park of Borgo Valsugana in Trentino, unveiled on August 31, 2024. The name Sabìr refers to the language of corsairs, a lingua franca that served as a verbal bridge among sailors in Mediterranean ports from East to West. The artist chose it as the title of his work, which, with its semicircular structure, evokes the domes that have been, and still are, one of the most widespread architectural forms in the Mediterranean region—recognizable markers of many capitals and ports in Europe.
Vitali's dome, with its rich historical associations, emerges from a dune of salt in a setting of fir trees and rocky layers—a form acting as a cultural bridge between East and West, past and modernity. For Sabìr, Velasco Vitali drew inspiration from Mediterranean domes that, starting from the 15th century, were often adorned with colorful majolica tiles. He reflects their vibrant chromatic patterns by painting larch shingles, typical of Alpine construction, in the luminous hues of Mediterranean ceramics—from ocean blues to the pinks of dawn—evoking the cultural imprint that has, for centuries, spread from the East across Europe's coasts.
Among the 6,000 hand-painted shingles covering Sabìr, the artist included 20 anomalous, neutral ones made of wood salvaged from a migrant boat wrecked on the shores of Lampedusa in 2013. These wooden pieces were incorporated into the work thanks to the collaboration between the Fondazione Casa dello Spirito and inmates at the Opera prison. The 20 planks, carved from the abandoned boat, serve as a poignant reminder of both an ancient, glorious history and a contemporary reality marked by sorrow and tragedy.
The installation of Sabìr began on October 3, 2023, during the Day of Memory and Welcome, marking ten years since the tragic shipwreck of 2013. As a tribute, the artist and his collaborators dedicated a portion of the installation’s expansive "sea surface" to the 20 missing individuals from that day—nameless and faceless—represented by the wooden shingles crafted from the Lampedusa boat among the 6,000 covering the dome.