Museum

The Museum of the Giara Horse has the task of collecting the testimonies of its host village, Genoni, focusing on the realities rooted in the historical memory of its population and preserved through material culture, work, stories, and the environment. Historical memory of a community whose path is accompanied by the presence of the Giara horse, like a shadow that follows it without abandoning it, defining its contours and marking its path.

The museum through images by photographer Alessio Orrù and a documentary by director Sergio Scavio tells the story of life on the Giara plateau over the course of a calendar year, describing the flora, fauna, and life of the Giara horse, but also man’s involvement in the management of the land.

In the section on the Giara horse, the animal’s origin, habitat and relationship with humans is explored.

The museum layout is based on interviews with local people who lived through the war years. The people of Genoa were invited to participate, and the response was important and active, as always. In the interviews, an attempt was made to gather an objective picture, avoiding influencing the interviewee with overly specific questions, and the sharpest memories were documented.

The microstories told are linked to the territory without ever splitting from the context but giving an additional documentary insight that imposes on us, out of documentary duty, an alternative exhibition museum system.

With the aim of engaging even the youngest children, the interviews passed into the hands of a great artist, illustrator Pia Valentinis, who after analyzing the collected material transferred it into illustrations. Paintings that strengthen the museum exhibition with the ambitious goal of being able to reach different sensibilities.

The illustrations themselves, with captions taken from the interviews, make up this original museum tour guide book. The book’s illustrations are organized by rooms, exactly as they can be seen at the museum where, you can also view the video interview that inspired the artist to create the drawing.

An important scientific contribution to the museum was made by Prof. Giulio Angioni who documented the rooms giving a broader view on Sardinian demoethnoanthropology generating a dialectical relationship between local and regional, and to Dr. Marco Piras of Agris for scientific assistance in the section dedicated to the Giara horse.

With the collaboration of the RP-Sardegna onlus, the contents are usable within the penta book, an important aid tool for discovering the museum for different cognitive abilities. With the same objective, Archeogeo has made reproductions of the larger objects facilitating the manipulation of the object as a whole.

The most important contribution is that of the soul of the museum, the local people who in different ways have participated, collaborated, donated, contributed, and are contributing to the life of the Giara Horse Museum.