Ilya Kabakov and his wife, Emilia, have always focused their work on social conditions in the Soviet Union during the post-revolutionary period, and their art describes that way of life and its paradigms. In the splendidly restored Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, the two artists presented a project that is emblematic of their work. Monumento alla civiltà perduta (Memorial to a lost civilization), 1999, represents a dream harbored by the Kabakovs for more than ten years, namely, to create a monument to the USSR, which, seemingly destined to endure for centuries, instead disintegrated unexpectedly.