Florence, 13 June 2024 – Culture rhymes with agriculture: the season starts again Easy Living on the Farm, inside Ova – Orto Verde Animali, the greenest summer space in the city, a few steps from Porta Romana (access from via Poccetti 1, with ample street parking). From June to September a varied cultural program including theatre, stand up comedy (Tuesday and Wednesday evenings), live music (from Thursday to Saturday), wellness and artistic installations in the countryside throughout the summer. Easy Living on the Farm was born with the aim of demonstrating how nature can be a powerful means to promote culture and social aggregation.
The OVA farm, founded in 2019, is an example of a “City Farm” that integrates real agriculture activities and Outdoor Education. Thanks to the partnership with Easy Living and the Piazzart cultural association, a consolidated reality in the Florentine panorama, the project will further evolve into a space capable of enhancing the care of greenery as an educational and socialization tool. Strengthened by a first edition which met with notable participation, Easy Living in Fattoria this year expands the proposal thanks to new forms of entertainment that are not very present in the programming of the Florentine Summer: Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, for example, will be dedicated to theatrical improvisation and stand up comedy, as well as literary meetings. From Thursday to Saturday evening, however, there is space for live music. Protagonist throughout the season will be local agriculture and the farm with animals, with activities dedicated to holistic medicine, games for the little ones and environmental sustainability. The area will also be the scene of plein air artistic installations, including “Unconditional”, a work curated by the artist Giovanbattista Giannangeli, known as Giambaccio, which opens on Friday 14 June at 7.30 pm. Unconditional is Giambaccio’s new artistic project for Easy Living in Fattoria as part of the Florentine Summer 2024. It is a 3 and a half meter high wooden sculpture that stands on the hill. The work was sculpted from a century-old plane tree that fell in the Torrigiani garden, recovered by the artist. The sculpture represents an anthropomorphic figure holding a hoe stuck in the ground, launching a cry of love to the sky. The concept that the work intends to express is that of reciprocity: taking and giving to the Earth, an essential element for the balance of everything.
The artist likes to think that his gesture is dedicated to the great souls who rest in the urns of the Allori cemetery, located nearby, where figures such as the writer Oriana Fallaci, the painter Arnold Böcklin and the art critic Roberto Longhi lie, for name a few. The work – declares the artist – recalls the hermetic concept: ‘What is above is like what is below, and what is below is like what is above, to make the miracle one thing’ . Everywhere in the universe, both above in the sky where the spirits float, and below where they rest, the same laws reign. In the middle there are us, human beings still alive, composed of the same elements: air, which comes out of our breathing and our singing; earth, on which we rest our feet; water, of which we are composed; and fire, because we are endowed with a thinking and crackling brain. We are a small but beautiful manifestation of life in a dancing cosmos.” The vernissage will be followed by a concert by Flip Flop & Fliers, a 6-piece group that reinterprets some great boogie, swing and rock and roll classics of the 40s, 50s and 60s. “Easy Living in Fattoria – declares Piero Iervolino for Piazzart – is part of a global context characterized by growing consumer interest in the origin of products. Urbanization has distanced agriculture from citizens: the project aims to rebuild this bond, promoting knowledge of the agricultural roots of our society through educational activities, farmers’ markets and the rediscovery of the seasonality of production. Easy Living on the Farm represents a unique opportunity to bring the community closer to nature, promoting a sustainable lifestyle and the rediscovery of the cultural and agricultural roots of our society”. Located on the slopes of the Marignolle hill, Easy Living in Fattoria represents a contemporary union between organic agricultural production and a meeting place and cultural production. Even food here is culture: for the entire season the space will host an “Agricultural Bar”, with restaurant and pizzeria, where you can try fresh, local products, Tuscan wines and dishes prepared with ingredients from the farm itself. A genuine and literally zero km gastronomic offer, where you can rediscover the taste of nature and sociality. Maurizio Costanzo
