A thread connects the Bosco delle Costantine to the village of Casamassella. A thread to be woven, knotted, and mended—capable of holding together memories and gestures, places and people, landscape and community. That thread is the Caloma Festival, created to link the inland region to the sea, much like the small raft used in the ancient fishing technique from which it takes its name, and today capable of becoming a cultural fabric, a collective consciousness, and a living identity. Future Memory.
Conceived and directed by Katia Manca and Francesca Guida, as a continuation of the Casamassella – Borgo delle Tessitrici project, funded by the Ministry of Culture’s PNRR and concluded in June —the third edition will take place on July 25 and 26 over two days that will strengthen the creative dialogue between the Le Costantine Foundation’s Wood and Casamassella, a hamlet of Uggiano la Chiesa now known, in fact, as the “Village of the Weavers.”
What makes a group of people a community? Caloma answers this question by constructing a geography of artworks, performances, installations, theater, and music in which relationships take shape as a visible fabric. A community recognized by its signs: letters, threads, voices, silences, archives, trousseaus, courtyards, and paths.
Here, Elena Bellantoni’s *Albergo delle Lettere* reclaims a disused structure, transforming the act of correspondence into a space to be experienced and traversed: fragments of letters and excerpts from the *Archivio delle Costantine* emerge from the walls as permanent traces, turning writing into a living material capable of preserving relationships and bringing them back to the present. Echoing this, the following day in Casamassella, Guendalina Salini’s *Come Unità*: a large multicolored net created through the shared act of knotting. The women of the community become an active part of the work, giving shape to an interweaving of personal and collective stories. Within this same fabric, *Fantasmi* by Nico Angiuli looks at the village at twilight, when the town changes its rhythm and public spaces enter a state of suspension.
From this reflection emerges the concept of “smarginatura,” which takes the form of a performance and two complementary works: an environmental sculpture in clay, situated in the woods, and a “Disco dei Vespri” at the Casa delle Culture del Mediterraneo, which displays the exact time of Vespers in Casamassella for every day of the year, transforming the time of sunset into a tool for orientation and memory.
Saturday, July 25: The Le Costantine Woods as a Sensitive Archive
On Saturday, July 25, the festival opens in the woods of the Le Costantine Foundation, where from 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. visitors can explore the works installed along the trail within the Foundation’s natural spaces. Here, the woods become a sensory archive—a place where matter preserves traces and art gives form to silent presences, sedimentations, organic memories, and female genealogies.
Alongside *Albergo delle Lettere* by Elena Bellantoni (an installation and performative reading at 8:00 p.m.), curated by ECCOM in collaboration with Fondazione Le Costantine, the exhibition features: *Come funghi* by Giulio Bensasson, *Tutti i punti che siamo* by Claudia Losi, *I miei pensieri nascono dalle tue mani* by Numero Cromatico, *Da innumerevoli innesti* by Lucia Veronesi, *Cantico dell’assenza* by Alice Padovani, and *Numine* by Raffaele Fiorella; along with *Fantasmi* by Nico Angiuli, *Arida* by Raffaele Vitto, and *Strati Scoperti* by Sead Kazanxhiu, curated by Cijaru and Fondazione Le Costantine.
The woods also host theater and performance: *Dàula, al di là del mare*, curated by Principio Attivo Teatro; *Fantasmi* by Nico Angiuli: a performance that begins in the village and reaches the Le Costantine woods (curated by Cijaru); *Medusa* by Fabritia D’Intino and Federico Scettri, curated by Index, explores dance within the dimensions of darkness and partial visibility.
The musical finale of the first day will feature Oh Petroleum at 9:30 p.m. and, at 10:30 p.m., Carolina Bubbico with the Vocàlia Tour. Live performances curated by Oikos.
Sunday, July 26: The Settings of the Story in Casamassella
On Sunday, July 26, the festival shifts its focus to Casamassella and the recently inaugurated House of Mediterranean Cultures. Here, the festival finds its second setting: rooms, courtyards, squares, and streets become venues for storytelling, continuing the journey of cultural regeneration that in recent years has restored the village’s textile, women’s, and community heritage to a central role.
The program begins at 7:00 p.m. with *I racconti di nessuno / Capitolo III. Casamassella* (Nobody’s Stories / Chapter III. Casamassella), by Lele Marcojanni, curated by Index. A visual storytelling collective founded by Elena Mattioli, Flavio Perazzini, and Roberto Mezzano that weaves together documentary, writing, sound design, installations, and local research. Their works focus on marginalized stories, local memories, and people who rarely find a place in traditional media narratives.
Also at the same venue:
- *Spaesamenti*, curated by ECCOM, a permanent exhibition of works created over the four years of the project by Luca Coclite, Claudia Losi, Alice Padovani, Alessia Rollo, Iginio De Luca, Guendalina Salini, Juan Sandoval, and Delphine Valli, along with new works by Giulio Bensasson, Giuseppe De Mattia, and Lucia Veronesi. A collective narrative that brings to life the tangible and intangible heritage of Casamassella through the languages of contemporary art; *Selvatica. Visioni di paesaggio*, a curatorial project by Oikos with Grazia Cariddi, Enrica Ciurli, and Marta Valiani; *Relazioni invisibili*, a herbarium by Elena Campa curated by Salento Km0; *Tavole della Maddalena* by Luigi Coppola and *Fantasmi. *Disco dei vespri* by Nico Angiuli (curated by Cijaru); *Bertuccia e i signori del fango* by and starring Fabrizio Pugliese of Ura Teatro, curated by Oikos.
In Piazza Caduti in Guerra, *Casa mobile a pedali*, curated by Principio Attivo Teatro, brings a small, poetic, and immersive journey to the village: a house on wheels where stories, memories, and objects come to life.
At 8:00 p.m., *Come Unità* by Guendalina Salini, curated by Oikos, transforms the act of tying colored threads into a collective gesture: thirteen women work alongside the artist to build a multicolored net, giving visible form to what holds a community together.
At the same time, the Red Lab Gallery is hosting the video screening *Chiedete al vento, all’onda, alla stella, all’uccello* (Ask the Wind, the Wave, the Star, the Bird), a project born out of the artist residency of Agata Ferra Bravo and Thomas Michael Saccuman, featuring a contribution by Flavio Favelli, curated by the Red Lab Gallery; in the courtyard on Via Guglielmo Marconi, *Alla terra* by Lorenzo D’Alba.
In the garden of the Casa delle Culture del Mediterraneo, REDREADING#13: *Un giorno bianco_dove il noi dimora in me* by Bartolini/Baronio, curated by Index, brings theater to life through the power of Gilles Clément’s book *Ho costruito una casa da giardiniere*, featuring an exploration of marginal places to be recognized as spaces of resistance and possibility.
The evening continues in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II with Mascarimirì, Enzo Petrachi, and, at 10:30 p.m., Fitness Forever. At midnight, in Piazza Caduti in Guerra, the Extra Festival, curated by Oikos, closes out the day with a DJ set by Ciaman and Torotom.ù
The complete program is available at http://casamassella-borgodelletessitrici.it