Hospitality is the tool to enhance Environmental Heritage and to connect the traveler with the assets of material and immaterial cultural tradition. Our experience with Rebeccu began in 2021, with the first edition of MusaMadre Festival, which saw us actively participating in 'organizing and supporting the artistic design and directly responsible for managing the logistics and housing units in the village during the artistic residencies. It is also thanks to this direct experience that we have gained an awareness of how hospitality in the form of artistic/creative residency, can play a fundamental role in the enhancement of the territory. This effect is also evidenced by the experience of "Ischeliu," the writing residency that, as it is dedicated to emigrants and Sardinian descendants living all over the world, appeals to the strong need to reconnect with their origins.

Rebeccu is for the Municipality of Bonorva and for Sardinia an important resource, whose potential must be responsibly developed by preserving the nature and cultural arrangement of the place and the territory, not falling into the temptation of "touristification." An original form of diffuse hospitality where the cultural proposal is combined with the multidisciplinary nature of artistic languages, "resilient communities" and the local culture, characterized by the agro-pastoral and artisan vocation, as an indispensable tool to maintain the metabolism of the territory unaltered.

ORGANIZATIONAL SYSTEM

The main goal of the project is to connect the traveler with the material and immaterial cultural tradition of Sardinia and in particular the Meilogu. This means that the means to attract guests are already at our disposal, the main means being the village itself with its history and distinctiveness, its territory rich in archaeological and environmental heritage, and its people. This means is not enough to ensure optimal capacity for fruition: in fact, a targeted strategy and organizational mode are needed.

Professionalism, quality and quantity of services, and knowledge of the area are elements at the basis of the project's success. The users of the village will mainly fall within a particularly motivated target group (scholars, artists, professionals and intellectuals) of travelers interested in immersive experiences in nature in the customs and traditions of the territory. We are convinced that the success of the project starts from the encounter between the visitor and those who inhabit this territory on a daily basis. The organizational mode is founded in the mediation capable of becoming a source of inspiration, a synergy that will nourish research and creativity and shared enrichment. 

This mediation also comes through offering a healthy protected environment that is comfortable but at the same time essential. Thus, we are not talking about pomp and frills, but about an offering that can respond, in its apparent minimalism, to the needs of maximum comfort for the user.

The project will see the consolidation of offerings and services through the various stages of start-up and development.

A process that we expect to take place in the first three years of activity as a congruous time to move to consolidation. We have envisioned a new model of cultural enterprise capable of creating virtuous circles and sustainable economies capable of enhancing Sardinia's historical and contemporary cultural heritage. During the first phase of the project, promotion will be targeted at the settled traveler and not just the passing tourist. Opportunities for residency and temporary housing dedicated to researchers, scholars, or artists who need a period of creative retreat will be created. These residency opportunities will start from the very resources of the area and especially from the historical and archaeological heritage, or from other targeted proposals such as university seminars related to architecture, environment and eco-sustainability, workshops led by renowned artists, creative retreats related to writing music, theater, photography, weaving, ceramics, and handicrafts in general, or even related to agribusiness and healthy living culture, to foster encounters with the value chain of goods, products, and services in the area, such as specific classes on Zichi baking or cooking classes in general. 

Rebeccu plays an important role in the History of Sardinia. The fact that it has not been inhabited for a few decades does not make it abandoned. Rebeccu has a strength of its own that should be not only considered, but respected and preserved. Our extreme attention is aimed at not losing, but rather bringing out even better this strength of his, which is nothing but the soul of the territory and its people. For this reason, we intend to collaborate, from the start-up phase of the project, with residents young or old, established or to be established in associations or other corporate forms. Through a period of targeted training, we intend to foster particularly among young people the emergence of professionalism that will gradually become responsible for the protection and promotion of the territory as well as affiliated partners in the management of the project.

The agora, the square, is the hub of a community's life. Rebeccu offers a great possibility: in the St. Julia Square overlooks, in addition to the consecrated church, its rectory, and hostel. It is precisely from these places that the development of our project will start.

The hostel with its facilities can immediately allow low-cost hospitality for impromptu travelers and accommodation for small workshop groups, resident artists by offering a solution with the B&B model. It will be enriched initially with some essential services that it currently lacks and that are functional and useful for the convenience of guests: a laundry room and an adjustment of the kitchen with small and large appliances that will also make it equipped for projects aimed at fostering the meeting with the value chain of goods and products of the area such as culinary seminars on agribusiness traditions and the agro-pastoral vocation of the region.

The rectory lends itself to the creation of several common-use spaces usable not only by Rebeccu guests but by the entire neighboring community. Among these spaces, we envision:

• An art studio/gallery (modular for multidisciplinary arts or studio classes)

• A coworking space equipped with internet connection and office services (printers, scanners, etc.)

• a bookshop/info point that will host cultural and literary initiatives, presentations and meetings with authors, small live performances, and that will offer services for promoting the area such as customized itineraries for walks and excursions thanks to the collaboration with authorized expert guides, travel agencies, and tour operators.

• A social garden with attached compost space for recycling and disposal of wet waste.

In particular, to start the social garden, we think a collaboration can be established with the "Enrico Fermi" Higher Education Institute of Bonorva. The idea was born to also involve young people from Bonorva in the creation of a common tool for the enhancement and preservation of local products with innovative and highly sustainable organic techniques and for an awareness of environmental education and recycling. 

The services are a means of attracting guests, while at the same time being part of a philosophy of living that is also ethical and sustainable and appeals to particular users who can develop synergies for the future growth of the project.

Rebeccu's environmental sustainability will immediately become a case study for two international institutions in New York and Barcelona involving architects, urban planners, and scientists.

New York Institute of Technology, has already signed on to begin a path with remote work sessions in the early part of the year and a workshop to be held on-site in late spring 2025 to complete the design phase. The goal posed is to obtain maximum performance from the hamlet with architectural solutions that provide essential infrastructure for hospitality and artistic activities, while respecting the rules of the urban plan, the Detailed Plan, and of course the environment. The result is to be achieved with the exclusive use of raw materials and natural resources of the area itself. 

With the Barcelona-based cultural institution Platsforma Vertices, the idea is to engage Rebeccu in a series of international residency projects aimed at environmental conservation and restoration through art and science. 

As the schedule of residency activities grows, so will the services and opportunities that the project can offer. The goal is to privately, at least temporarily, make up for some of the critical issues, such as the lack of public transportation services connecting Rebeccu to the surrounding area as early as the first year.

These first means will complement what are already today the attractive features of Rebeccu, making the village usable for all and attractive to artists and creative people who already find in the quiet places the right dimension to study or create.

As the start-up work progresses and the parsonage and hostel activities are scheduled, we will begin to take care of the other properties, which need deeper maintenance. Of the nine available properties, five will be optimized as residential units and four will instead be used as commercial units/pop-up stores/artist studios/galleries, the layout of which will be developed by collaborations with professionals (designers and architects) and with the involvement of local artisans and businesses for the necessary artifacts and furnishings.

The result of this structural adjustment we believe will give Rebeccu an aesthetic and architectural recognizability, a means that will represent a high attraction for guests and bring great prestige to the territory and the Municipality of Bonorva from which we hope for total complicity to also ensure the decorum of the entire village and public areas, including finding the most congenial solutions for the cleaning of roads and paths, garbage collection, protection of the public peace and everything that can ensure the preservation of an unspoiled and historically relevant place.

Upon completion of the start-up and development phases, Rebeccu will host an innovative and humanistic hybrid tourism/cultural accommodation project divided into six macro-segments identified to enable the enjoyment of immersive experiences, wellness (yoga, holistic practices), sports (biking, hiking, multi-adventure trip), cultural (archaeology, architecture, science), artistic and dedicated to the promotion of the area. These six macro-segments are: 

• the individual or group experiential travel, with offerings ranging from low budget (hostel) to luxury (widespread hotel) and open to travelers who wish to have an immersive experience in the area to learn about its customs, traditions, archaeological and natural resources, trekking routes, food, arts and crafts

• multidisciplinary art residency (aimed at working groups and structured through workshops, seminars, workshops, meetings or panels, and new collective art productions)

• individual retreat for artists or scholars (e.g., university professors on their sabbatical) with services aimed at wellness and fostering creativity;

• the venue for public events (for example festivals, literary meetings, small fairs - including in periods connected with holidays and festivities - of handicrafts or agribusiness and pastoral production)

• The venue for private events (for example weddings, christenings, high fashion shows)

• the base camp for film sets (with services aimed at covering all location scouting and general organization needs for the film crew).

The project can be said to be consolidated when the activities cover at least eleven months a year.

Read more in Italian at https://www.musamadrefestival.it/progetto-rebeccu