Sant'Antioco, Chiara Vigo's Abyss Museum

The laboratory museum focuses on processing techniques and on the exhibition of bissum artifacts, known as sea silk, a fabric derived from the filaments extracted from the Pinna Nobilis bivalve shell. Chiara Vigo, who is the heart and soul of the museum-laboratory, is a Master of ancient weaving who keeps alive knowledge inherited through direct and family transmission, a material and intangible heritage that has passed from Master to Master over many generations.
In his approximately seventy canvases - many preserved in Sant'Antioco, some exhibited in museums such as the Museum der Kulturen in Basel or the National Museum of Arts in Rome - we recognize drawings handed down from generation to generation: lions in defense of women, pavoncels in defense of peace, trees of life, emotions of earth and water, moons and nuragic ships. All with a symbolic meaning. They are made on an ancient hand loom with a linen warp and a byssum weave woven with nails.
Since 2005, countless visitors from all over the world have traveled to Sardinia to visit the byssus museum: the 'living museum' of Maestro Chiara Vigo, to listen to her and admire her collection of works, as well as to see her at work creating the silk of the sea (texts taken from Chiara Vigo's official website).

Why is it important to visit it
A journey through a unique culture, to be carried out following a thin and precious thread of marine silk. A narrative-lesson, that of Chiara Vigo and her works, which ranges from genealogical, historical and anthropological references to a sort of spiritual philosophy of nature. A thousand-year-old and wise knowledge that is transmitted slightly, through memory, and only orally, in its complexity.
A creative vision where the preservation of the natural environment and the perpetuation of the tradition of biscus weaving are equally important. An existence on land and in the sea that is realized through the knowledge of winds, the properties of herbs and marine biology, following the complex textures of a thin thread of biscus.