Four Moors (Sardinia), 2008

Four-channel video installation, aspect ratio 4:3, 10 min 20 sec, DV Cam (SD), stereo sound

Four Moors, Sardinia is a video work made in response to an invitation to participate in an interventionist exhibition at the Ministry of Culture in Cagliari, Sardinia. While researching towards this commission, I became aware of the complicated and conflicted nature of a ‘Sardinian sense of identity’.

While now autonomous after decades of struggle over its status, the island is far from united, its many dialects as well as the many variations in the design of its flag pointing to this complexity. For this commission, I invited employees from the ministry to sing a traditional Sardinian song to camera, acappella in an impromptu studio set up in one of the ministry’s office rooms.

The film presents the four singers in profile in direct reference to the Sardinian flag, which shows four moors’ heads divided by a red cross. The four songs range from a nursery rhyme, a love song, a call to arms and a political song against the tyranny of Sardinia’s oppressors. The work was installed in the lobby of this modernist building as if greeting visitors into the exhibition.