With its third edition, MusicaLucis returns to the Itria Valley. A festival that combines art, music and entertainment involving the cities of Fasano, Ostuni and Locorotondo. In addition to a rich and international music schedule, with a lineup selected by artistic director Veronica Palmisano (Nikaleo), art also finds its space with outdoor and indoor projects curated by Laura Tota. The festival will animate the cities of the Heel of Italy from December 7 to January 6, involving the entire Christmas period. In this sense, the selection of curator Laura Tota is interesting, who carefully chooses artists who experience Christmas in a countertrend to the romantic climate we are used to. We are talking about the works of Luci di Merda (which we have already talked about here), illustrator PAMCOC, photographer Laura Baiardini and Instagram pages PandinineiPaesini and Salento Death Valley. Let’s find out more about their projects.
Luci di Merda
Luci di Merda, a page that is all the rage on Instagram, reasons about the concept of the balcony understood as a boundary between private and public, where privacy is mixed with the desire to show off. During Christmas, balconies become spectacular with bright decorations ranging from the eclectic to the kitschy. This social phenomenon is collected on Instagram by Shit Lights, which celebrates the excess and irony of Christmas decorations. The often low-quality photos capture awkwardly or excessively decorated balconies, becoming a way to share Christmas joy without artistic pretensions. Palazzo Tanzarella will host an event to enhance these eccentric decorations in the company of Shit Lights.
PAMCOC
Every year during the Christmas season, families come together in the name of a reconciliation that seems reserved only for that time. Conventional rituals and phrases of circumstance become a way to suspend tensions and conflicts that otherwise permeate the rest of the year. Visual artist PAMCOC, in this edition of Musica Lucis, ironically and unfilteredly expresses these Christmas conventions through irreverent phrases, offering an authentic and candid view of an often idealized period. Her sincere and contrasting thoughts underscore how these situations, though amid emotional highs and lows, are a constant in our lives, similar to the decorations on a Christmas tree that finally reflect the reality of the longest holidays of the year.
Pandini nei Paesini
The Instagram project @pandinineipaesini, presents for the first time a selection of user photos set in Puglia. With over 64 K followers, the project expresses a love of life in villages that might otherwise become only tourist destinations. This project focuses on the 1980s Fiat Panda, an icon that retains a strong identity and defies modern technological and design standards. The Panda thus becomes a symbol of a romanticism associated with the working class. During the Musica Lucis event, eight photographs collected over time by Vittorio, the project’s founder, are exhibited in Locorotondo, accompanied by stories of the places and cars portrayed, offering the public a journey through the region of Puglia. These amateur photos capture an everyday life that flows by following the authentic rhythms of life, far from the iconic clichés associated with Puglia.
Salento Death Valley
The project Salento Death Valley by photographer Gabriele Albergo reveals a little-known and hidden Puglia, far from the stereotypical images and glossy tales that often characterize it. This photo series highlights a dark and unseen side of the region, exploring the fine line between sacred and profane, public and private. Albergo focuses on everyday peculiarities, ironizing and dismantling the ordinary to make it uncanny. Far from tourist glamour, this project shows an authentic Apulia, a reality that lives independently of outside gazes. Through an irreverent approach, Albergo unveils mingling devotion and folklore, skimming the line between veneration and banality, between superstition and the everyday. His photos, published in various newspapers, offer an unusual and provocative look at life in the province of Lecce, challenging clichés and highlighting unexpected aspects of Apulian culture and everyday life.
Laura Baiardini
Laura Baiardini, an expert photographer in still life and fashion photography, shows an unusual side of the holiday season through images charged with psychodrama and contradictions. For some, Christmas becomes a commitment to check off the to-do list, rather than a time of joy. Baiardini creates surreal and pop scenes, with set tables, eccentric gifts and a bright color palette. Her photo sets seem to embody Christmas as if it were a movie set, with each object carefully placed to tell precise stories and convey precise feelings. In this context, enduring becomes paramount, and the only way to survive this depiction of the holiday season seems to be to abandon the clichés and good-naturedness associated with Christmas.
Find out more on Instagram Account @musicalucis_festival
