Giungla is a festival of contemporary art and an opportunity to meet and discuss the complex link between man, nature and technology. When did man come out of nature to look at it from afar? What does technology tell us about us and our nature? Who is subject and who is object, who acts and who undergoes the changes of what surrounds us?

In 2021 our jungle is “domestic”. Together with the ecosystem of relationships that made this edition possible, we decided to focus on the concept of “inhabiting/dwelling”, of experiencing the house, whatever this may be for us. In our domestic jungle, which is more or less populated, more or less violent, more or less noisy, we can closely observe what ecology means. Ecology is here understood not only as the need to preserve and defend nature, but also in its primary meaning, that is, the study of the relationships between organisms or groups of organisms and their natural environment.

In addition to the dream of flying, mankind has been imagining going to the moon for centuries, from Lucian of Samosata II B.C. to Elon Musk, although not always motivated by the same reasons. For Astolfo, in Ludovico Ariosto’s opera, going to the moon was the only way to recover Orlando’s lost wits. But once on the star, the interstellar traveller realises that he too has lost part of his reason. Here, in fact, are found ampoules with the reason of those on earth who, for one reason or another, have forgotten part of themselves.

Artists and art initiatives from Turkey and around the world are invited to explore the connections/nodal points of the complex relationships between all living and non-living structures, through questions on “How can we produce together?”, “How do we live together?”, “How do we work together?”.

Giungla in 2023 is bucolic, questioning the enchantment of nature, but also disenchantment. It leads you in and out of the city like a Pied Piper, among new art productions, workshops and encounters.

Carmine derives from Carmelo which means vineyard, orchard, or garden. From here the barefoot Carmelites take their name, or rather from Mount Carmel which, in Upper Galilee, was a place of prayer and contemplation. This religious order, mendicant (vow of poverty), worker and aimed at an ascetic practice, had its home in the centre of Lucca, in the monastery which in the 19th century was transformed into a city market. It is interesting how there is a semantic continuity between the ancient inhabitants of this building and the future merchants, both turned to the land, to the gifts of nature, to the cultivation of a garden, of a space made of exchange and sharing, of roots and prayers.

GIUNGLA in 2024 questions itself around the ROOTS and its drifts of meaning, calling on artists and researchers to express themselves. Today, perhaps more so than yesterday, finding a balance between attachment to one’s own land and traditions, and the desire to migrate, to break with one’s past in order to build a (better?) future elsewhere, is increasingly strong everywhere in the world.