Italy, Sardinia, Stintino
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Absentia – Exploring the Absence is a cultural and non-profit organisation based in Stintino, northwestern Sardinia
https://www.google.es/maps/place/Via+Torre+Falcone,+9,+07040+Stintino+SS,+Italie/@40.9368279,8.2225452,16.5z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x12dc9c2626562f5f:0x30571664139c02be!8m2!3d40.9369331!4d8.2247382!16s%2Fg%2F11c22ymf6p?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDIxOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
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(Italy) dedicated to activating inclusive and sustainable transitions in remote and rural areas through culture, creativity, and territorial engagement. Our mission is to fill the gaps left by a rapidly changing society by empowering small communities, fostering social and environmental sustainability, social inclusion, and urban and rural regeneration. Absentia’s activities span multiple fields related to sustainability, social innovation, community building, and international cooperation. We develop and manage projects that promote environmental and social sustainability, including initiatives for urban regeneration, rural revitalization, and the preservation of small communities.
Our work focuses on strengthening community ties by fostering a sense of belonging, encouraging active participation, and promoting collaboration among local actors. We provide social design and European project design services to third-sector entities, public administrations, and businesses wishing to translate ideas into concrete, impact-oriented initiatives. We also support social entrepreneurship and the creation of social enterprises that contribute to positive environmental and societal change.
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Stintino is a small coastal village in north-western Sardinia, with around 1,500 residents. Like many Mediterranean communities, its life follows a sharp seasonal rhythm. Summer brings visitors, activity, and income. When the season ends, the village empties out. 82.5% of homes in Stintino are not inhabited during the low season**.** Public spaces close or reduce their hours. Streets that were busy in August become quiet by October.
The off-season absence has real consequences for the people who live there year-round: fewer services, less social life, a shrinking sense of community. Over time, this seasonal emptiness contributes to a broader pattern common across rural Sardinia and the Mediterranean, where small villages lose population, local knowledge fades, and young people move away in search of opportunities that don't exist nearby.
Stintino's own history carries a relevant thread. The village was founded by families displaced from the island of Asinara at the end of the 19th century, people who were forced to relocate and had to build a new community from scratch. That experience of rupture and rebuilding is part of the village's identity. Today, the challenge is different in nature but equally real: not a sudden displacement, but a gradual thinning out, season after season.
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Pescatori Digitali ("Digital Fishers") is a diffused coliving and collaborative residency that takes place in Stintino every November, during the low season. The project brings together around 20 people, including creatives, researchers, remote workers, artists, designers, and educators, who come to live and work in the village for up to four weeks. The premise is straightforward. Rather than treating the off-season as a problem to solve, the project treats it as an opening. Empty homes become places to stay. Closed public spaces, the library, the Museum of the Tonnara, the tourist office, become places to work and gather. The silence of November becomes a condition to work with rather than against. Participants are not visitors passing through. They are temporary inhabitants: people who learn the names of streets and neighbors, share meals, open spaces that have been closed for months, and bring their own skills and practices into contact with the life of the village. In the first edition, 19 activities took place over 21 days. Tuna Talks were held at the Tonnara Museum. Beaches were cleaned. Workshops and shared dinners happened. A bar that stays open all year hosted a music session. Things were made and exchanged. The project is a counter-narrative to the village's seasonal logic, and in a quieter way, to its founding history as well. Stintino was built by people who came out of necessity. Pescatori Digitali is built by people who come by choice, choosing to be present in a place that is usually overlooked between summers.
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Pescatori Digitali works with what already exists in Stintino rather than importing new infrastructure or programming from outside. The methods are intentionally light and adaptable. Diffused coliving places participants in local homes across the village rather than in a single shared space, distributing the project's presence throughout Stintino and connecting participants more directly to the texture of daily village life.
Alongside this, the project focuses on the reactivation of existing public spaces**,** turning underused places like the library, the Tonnara Museum, and the tourist office into functional coworking hubs, workshop spaces, and meeting points, demonstrating that these spaces have year-round potential and giving residents and participants a shared setting for exchange.
Micro-proposals are small contributions that each participant brings and shares during their stay: a workshop, a dinner, a talk, a skill, a question. The format is kept simple on purpose, low logistics, short duration, open to locals. Each participant is also asked to practice restitution: to leave something useful behind, whether a recipe, a map, a piece of documentation, a small guide, a dataset, or a design.
The project runs in close collaboration with the Municipality of Stintino, with financial support from Fondazione di Sardegna, and in partnership with Sende, a network exploring new models of living and working in place.
Video: to be uploaded