Photo: MEA with boy and donkey: photo Stefano Ferrando (SPOP - Sardarch project) - Interior of the MEA and farmhouse: photo Giuseppe Loche

The story of the MEA, the Museum of Emigration in Asuni, starts in 2002, thanks to the initiative of Antonio Porcu, born in Asuni and migrated to Bologna, who donates a small old house to the Municipality of Asuni. This is the starting point of a series of cultural activities aimed at creating a documentation center dedicated to emigration issues, and in general to the study and dissemination of migrant cultures.

At that time in Asuni, a group of people begins to interact with the non-profit organization Su Disterru. Thanks to more complex and richer connections between the small village and various international bodies, new synergies and new activities are developed: terre di confine filmfestival is one of these.

The Municipality of Asuni welcomes and promotes these proposals: thus, together with the focus on migrant cultures comes forward the idea of ​​restoring some buildings, creating a location for cultural events dedicated to this theme. Two buildings are renovated: the first one is the small old house donated by Antonio Porcu, the second is the local school, no more used due to population decline.

The small old house testifies the ancient way of life: a few rooms communicate through the porch to the steep front yard; on the top floor, again a series of small rooms under a roof made of reeds. The renovation has preserved the whole structure of the house, with its fireplace, its own well, and backyard utilities. The project has respected the historical architecture, only removing tinsel and accretions, equipping the white rooms with museum lighting and digital equipment, allowing a new use of a functional and beautiful space. The courtyard separates the house from the street: with its porch, well, old fruit trees, it’s an intimate place inviting to silence and reflection.

The other building, originally a kindergarten, due to its architectural structure and location was more adapted to civil service and public activities: the renovation has reinterpreted it as a museum and research facility.
 Located on land plot on the road to Samugheo, it was presumably based on a standard project by the Civil Engineering Department or the Italian Ministry of Education for the construction of kindergartens in all the country.
 In the Seventies, the migration phenomenon that affected the island and the whole Marmilla district produced a strong population decline: the number of children no longer justified the maintenance of the school, which was closed and abandoned. 
The original building, with a flat roof, was divided into five large rooms used as classrooms and ancillary rooms for services and offices. 


The renovation project addressed the problem of a museum space lit with natural light while maintaining the building's structural setting.
 The objective was achieved closing most of the existing openings and creating new zenithal lighting points. Existing pitched roofs are pierced in specific points to allow the insertion of skylights for natural lighting. The volume of the building, a series of staggered rectangles, originally appearing as several boxes of different height, is enhanced by the project by canceling from the facades the impact of the projecting pitched roofs and bringing it back to its volumetric essence. The building is characterized by the succession of five volumes of different mass and height, the upper side hosting a roof slope hosting sunlight dissemination from above.
 Windows have been removed from several inner walls; the museum is intended as a flexible structure, allowing to process the data collected during its events and activities.
 Therefore its spaces are quite adapted to exhibitions as well as workshops, archives, study and work activities.