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.

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?”.

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.

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.

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?

The idea came from Sharon, then Federica made us dive into the lake, and Irene began to conduct the orchestra of words and verses that populate our days as readers, lovers of stories and places, clouds and marshes. And then we found companions and fellow travelers, whom we thank. First of all LIPU with Leo, then Selene and Christian who brought Massaciuccoli to Venice — to the last Venice Architecture Biennale, and Chiara and Enzo, with their sensitivity that touches everything with a sound.

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.

Many great ideas — from the simplest culinary twist to the most heartfelt of revolutions — have been born on a couch. We know it well, here at S.O.F.A., whose name carries the weight of our ἀρχή [archè]. Strolls taken along the edge of the floor, periodically swept by alcoholic backwash and a shifting breeze that fizzes, strikes, or settles, depending on the mood. But that is not the mystery.

Francis Alÿs, Re-enactments, 2001.