• Botanical Garden
Entrance from the Casermetta San Regolo on the city walls, Lucca
Growing among pirate plants.
Happy Birthday Italo Calvino!
In collaboration with the Agora Library and in partnership with Lucca Creative Hub, the Ass. Millimètrica and TRY International Training and Research program for Young Dancers
For the closing event of Giungla, we will remember Italo Calvino together – on the very day of his birthday – through the writer’s special relationship with the family gardener Libereso Guglielmi.
In the garden of the Agora Library, dedicated to Pia Pera, we will celebrate the author’s birthday with the projection of Gabriella Ciancimino’s video All’allerbaggio, a jam of poems by the ass. millimètrica, and dance with the TRY study programme by choreographer Marta Coronado. It will be a party where anyone can participate and read their heartfelt texts, listen to the words of others, observe how language can be transformed into dance.
Gabriella Ciancimino, All’allerbaggio, 2014
The video is part of the three-part project Gabriella Ciancimino developed for the Museo di Villa Croce, Genoa, in 2014. The artist’s research focuses on the relationship between nature and society, on the intertwined paths of subjects considered undesirable, and concludes with a video documenting her encounters with Libereso Guglielmi in his San Remo home. Better known as the ‘Calvino gardener’, Guglielmi was the gardener of the Calvino family as well as the protagonist of a youthful short story by the Ligurian writer, ‘An Afternoon Adam’. A heretical and at the same time auratic character, Guglielmi is the interpreter of an anarchic vision of the botanical universe. In the artist’s video, the theory and practice of the gardener are intertwined with freestyle music tracks specially created by Lorrè and Marcolizzo (Shakalab), two young Reggae musicians with hip hop influences with whom the artist has collaborated.
Gabriella Ciancimino
Gabriella Ciancimino (Palermo,1978) has deepened her interest in history and philosophy applied to art by attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo (Painting specialization) at which she obtained her Diploma in 2005.
Solo exhibitions include: “I can’t swim without a sky” at Galleria Gilda Lavia (Rome, 2020); “IN LIBERTY WE TRUST”- collateral event of Manifesta 12, Palazzo Ziino (Palermo, 2020), “All’allerbaggio” at Museo Villa Croce (Genoa 2013).
He has exhibited in international institutions such as MMOMA (Moscow, 2016), MACBA (Barcelona 2014), Milan Triennale (2014), La Kunsthalle, Centre d’art contemporain Mulhouse (2013), PAV (Turin 2013), L’appartement 22 (Rabat, MO, 2010/2012). American Academy in Rome (2009-2013). Notable projects include “Smell in Dialect” a permanent installation commissioned by KCHC (Brooklyn, 2019), “Biennale Benin” (Cotonou 2012), “Volume 1 project of “Sentences on the banks and other activities” exhibition project at Darat al Funun (Amman, 2010) and “Working For Change. Project for A Moroccan Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale” (Venice, 2011).
His works have been acquired in some public collections including, Palazzo Riso, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, (Palermo), Museo Villa Croce (Genoa) and Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (Marseille, FR).
“In my most recent works, I have analyzed the relationship between human beings and plants in Nature underlying the establishment of a Landscape as a “place” of reflection and at the same time of preservation of historical memory and collective action. Anthropological study is accompanied by experimental research aimed at identifying dissonant elements to be inserted into the landscape, thus generating visual cracks in which reality is “ecologically” modified. I have thus developed a tendency to create site-specific and collective works, using different media such as video, music, installation, drawing, graphics and sculpture. My work is an invitation to dialogue about the concept of resistance and freedom applied to the relationship with the surrounding environment, experimenting with The Social Ecology theorized by Murray Bookchin through the involvement of the Collectivity in the creation of the work and in the transformation of a place into a space in which to experience freedom, breaking the hierarchy between Artist and Benefactor.” (G.C.)
Millimètrica APS was founded in Lucca in 2022 from the idea of a group of people passionate about literature and in particular poetry, more or less contemporary. The purpose of the association is the organization of cultural and artistic activities not only to promote the dissemination of poetry in social, educational and training contexts, but above all to create relationships and connections between people, associations and realities of the territory, believing in the transformative action of the word as a concrete, common and participated practice. A number of literary and musical initiatives have been organized during this year of activity: the evening Desiderata – Voices of poets on the night of San Lorenzo as part of the Real Collegio Estate event; book presentations (Canzone nera, by Wisława Szymborska, Adelphi Edizioni; Rossa e plebea. Pisa, half a century ago, by Luciano Luciani, Carmignani Editrice; In fuga col barone. Nel mondo di Calvino, by Stefano Tofani, Einaudi Ragazzi); the Parole note review in the premises of the Real Collegio with a double date between music and words (the presentation of the concept album Ultimo D’Annunzio by the Pistoiese singer-songwriter Alfredo Marasti and the concert by the Tuscan trio Le Malcercone).
TRY
TRY is an educational path that was born in Lucca and is aimed at dance students who have completed their high school studies and wish to devote themselves to a professional career to become dancers, choreographers, performers. TRY is entrusted to the Artistic Direction of Marta Coronado, internationally renowned lecturer, former dancer of the Rosas company (Brussels) and Director of La Faktoria Choreografic Center (Spain), Organizational Director and project manager is Elisabetta Fiorini lecturer at the Liceo musicale artistico of Lucca and director of the Fuoricentro Danza school. The opportunity for this union and the idea to start with this project came with the birth in Lucca of a new space entirely dedicated and renovated for dance and contemporary arts: Motore 592.
Lucca Creative Hub
Lucca Creative Hub is a social promotion association formed by professionals with multiple and diverse skills, united by the desire to: promote processes of urban and social regeneration; realize inclusive social and cultural innovation projects; build participatory, co-design and co-creation paths; accompany project ideas to become real projects, including business projects.
