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Vivere la campagna
The traditional economy of Middle Campidano, closely linked to agro-pastoral activities, has influenced the production of handicrafts, for the most part consisting of items having specific functions in daily activities.
Expert artisans’ hands used to produce handicrafts of a surprising workmanship and quality, exclusively created using local raw materials, such as leather, wood, herbs, reed, wool, animal horns, cork, clay and earth, forged according to individual fancy and skill.
Housework and farming needs have thus determined shape, size and practical qualities of handicrafts: jack-knives were essential in the agro-pastoral world; baskets of various types were used either as containing tools in the fields and as household fittings, as young brides’ indispensable dowry (such as the stresciu ‘e fenu); cooking earthenware; linen, carpets and tapestries; chests, cork trays etc. and even beehives.
Skills have been preserved by handing down traditions and knowledge through the production of items whose primary utility was replaced by a mere aesthetic/decorative function of great quality and value.
Visits to laboratories and explorations of craftsmanship exhibitions, organized on the occasion of village fairs and festivals, constantly attended by local artisans, offer an opportunity to discover a world, still intact, which has inherited arts and techniques from centuries of farming and pastoral culture and know-how.
It is not a simple journey to buy souvenirs, but a real route of knowledge, intensely smelling of farmed land, pastures, bakery and ancient traditions.