MuSaBa emanates emotions, perceptual abilities and expands aesthetic education deep in the mind. The way of conceiving art, architecture and landscapes aims to redevelop space itself. The visitor gets the feeling that he is involved in something worthy of the biggest art events. A relationship exists between art-architecture-landscape-space-works of art. There is an invitation to listen to space around. Spatari is the antidote of the superstar that simply makes manufactured items.
In his simplicity he takes us back to the idea of “no promise of power and prestige” but instead distils knowledge typical of the Mediterranean culture.
Spatari focuses his projects on the evolution of Mediterranean history in its most significant scientific expressions: art, architecture, environment and science of man in all of his formal anthropological, social and eclectic aspects. He adopts a refined criteria to assess man, nature and space. He thinks in terms of functions to be distributed always keeping in mind a system to be enjoyed by all.

Santa Barbara Museum

In the creation of MUSABA there is and unquestionable high value testimony of the work of two artists whose images are inspired by the language of the local historical fragments; Nik Spatari is present in the creative phase with his drawings and designs while Hiske Maas is the promotes, coordinates and implements the phases of these creations. Being exponents of art-architecture and environment, the two artists use the natural elements of the Torbido valley, the Torbido and Neblà streams, the cliffs from the plateau together with the ancient Carthusian monestary, the Mediterranean gardens with its monumental sculpture, the protohistoric site, the MuSaBa art Hotel/guest quarters and the former train station to become a single project called AMA Ambiente Mediterraneo Arte (Environment, Mediterranean Art). This process of integration between past and present is of great interest and utility, creating a park-museum-workshop school, one of its kind in Italy, with a great visual impact.
ArteProject art environment

 

By linking “Art” with “Environment,” Nik and Hiske designed the essential objectives for their foundation: the realisation of the museum park laboratory. The project is a prototype, a creative and environmental complex, an educational process. Working in tandem, Spatari Maas were inspired by the Renaissance workshops where the teacher used to look for his collaborators so that they would help carry out the work in progress and at the same time ending up learrning through practice. It is a research and educational laboratory open to young and other curious people from all over the world.

Work in progress

MUSABA is a work in progress, it involves large parts of the territory, it carries out many different interventions at different times and using different amounts of space;. MUSABA is an evolving structure. It is an ensemble of architecture, sculpture, visual works of art, the Mediterranean Art Garden, the river valley, and an archaeological site. What must be appreciated about this place is the richness and uniqueness of the architectural part of the project conceived by Spatari and of the Art Garden where Italian and foreign artists have worked for years to create works inseparable from their scenic environment, grounding the artistic content of each piece in function. The relationship with history is seen as an open and continuing process that is reinterpreted, restored, and innovated at each moment in time. The natural context of this environmental project will shelter the essences and symbols that relate to the cultural horizons of the foundation.
Synthesis of the MUSABA Project

 

The purpose of the MUSABA project is the innovative restoration and experimental new art forms and techniques to produce examples of a high level of workmanship to reinterpret ancient ways on stone work and carving and help in the restoration of stone building. The finality of the MuSaBaLab is the experimentation in the architectonical new constructive solutions in line with the environmental surroundings. The project consists of the restoration and functional adaptation of the ancient monastery Santa Barbara into a fully equipped museum-school-laboratory of contemporary arts that promotes cultural activities through the development and use of art laboratories, museum spaces, visitors’ info centre, editorial services, and the multimedia databases. The MUSABA aims at becoming a international point of reference for public and private institutions operating in Italy and abroad for artists and architects with an in depth evaluation that will outline a constantly updated framework on the development of the XXI century’s arts and environmental architecture.