Like a cadavre exquis, GIUNGLA has developed from 2020 to today, weaving lines from one edition to another, involving artists and researchers from various parts of the world, dialoguing with public and private institutions, patrons, educational entities, cultural institutes, inhabiting many places in the city center and the outskirts of Lucca.

Each year brought a thought and a reconsideration, a word that echoed throughout everything else: garden, vegetable patch, home, moon, bucolic, radical — creating in those who have always frequented it an imaginary museum of symbols and meeting realities.

In a country populated by festivals, we constantly question the need to continue producing events limited in time and space, especially today when digital is so disruptive, and much now happens via streaming in a world where carbon neutrality should prevail over the pleasure of proximity. Finding a compromise between being physically present together and being connected remotely is a theme. So is the importance of creating more spontaneous, recurring, and non-episodic occasions, closer to everyday life and the ordinary, and less to the extraordinary and sensational. Perhaps a return to an old concept of associationism — which should still be relevant — that of clubs, convivial meetings, ordinary and extraordinary assemblies in which together we reason and build knowledge: knowledge of oneself, the other, and what both self and other know through experience or study and can bring to the table.

For this reason, GIUNGLA this year is a REMIX. It is so because it takes up the content and spirit that moved previous editions to create something new, perhaps a form closer to a collective work than to a festival. A poetic work, in the sense of poiesis, of making, but more together, in a horizontal way.

Thus, from January 2025, Artedimarte takes place at Ciclodivino with a monthly appointment moderated by a volunteer focusing on a work or a theme of the arts. We will continue on May 27th and until someone wishes to propose themselves as the Master of Games.

On June 8th, at the Oasi di Massaciuccoli, from an idea by Sharon Tofanelli and Federica Mariotti, curated by Irene Panzani, Parlatoio is born: a new format, almost a dramaturgy, along the wooden walkway between water and land. Poetic and prose texts, together with sounds and images, will follow the rhythm of footsteps on a late Sunday afternoon.

Then a remote workshop with Giuditta Vendrame, who, starting from the archive, will lead us to produce something — a fanzine? A newspaper? A multimedia product? Who knows… We will decide together with old and new members willing to embark on this experience along with the artist and former teacher at the Design School of Eindhoven during the Formafantasma direction, whose research themes are dear to GIUNGLA.

In autumn, a cycle of meetings will begin in tune with the spirit of our event. They will take place on Thursdays, between September and November, both in person and online, each addressing — from a different perspective — the question: “How do we build knowledge?”

Opening the program on Thursday, September 11th, will be Veronica Caciolli, art historian, curator, and professor. Graduated from DAMS in Bologna under Renato Barilli, she deepened her studies between Berlin, Rome, Milan, and London, specializing in curatorship, art criticism, anthropology of art, history of religions, and Western esotericism. She earned a Master of Research (MRes) in Cultural, Intellectual and Visual History at the Warburg Institute in London.

With over eleven years of experience as a museum curator (Mart in Rovereto, Museo di Palazzo Pretorio in Prato), she now works independently exploring connections between art and anthropology through texts, exhibitions, lectures, and conferences in Italy and abroad. She has published with major publishers including Silvana Editoriale, Electa Mondadori, Gli Ori, Wip, Postmedia Books, and Mousse Publishing. She teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna, IED, and LABA in Florence.

Following will be Charlotte Cosson, Tommaso Guariento… more details soon.

In October, for the Contemporary Art Day promoted by AMACI, Josse Renda will present the continuation of his research started in 2023, based on a text found in the library of the Botanical Garden — the Physiognomy of Plants by the intellectual, alchemist, and writer Giovanbattista Della Porta. From this bookish encounter came the workshop with the girls of the Classical High School of Lucca titled Magiae Naturalis; on October 11th, 2025, we will discover together the next chapter of this journey between art, science, and magic in a magical place yet to be revealed.

Words by Irene Panzani