The Celebration in Space and Time

The project encouraged the interpretation of the concept of celebration from a wide range of perspectives. If, as Mugnaini proposes, the celebration is “a very human way of disrupting our lived experience by attributing to it values that are very ​​different from the common flow of our everyday life” (Mugnaini, 2023: 23; 30), then it follows that celebration is also intricately bound to place and time, and depends on a plurality of subjects.

The advantageous position afforded by the present context of documentary and ethnographic research allowed for a thorough investigation of the spaces, places, and times of the celebration, using contemporary languages to interpret and analyse the findings.

Celebration can be understood as an interruption of everyday time, an interruption that alters the very landscape, transforming it from an everyday landscape into a festive one.  Bodies move through this festive landscape accompanied by sounds, smells, colours, gestures, and emotions. “A celebration is […] the moment in time when communities great and small cyclically rediscover themselves and re-establish themselves through the reenactment of myth” (Ranalli, 2021), a process in a constant state of being reworked and recreated. The eager participants have earned their right to join in the celebration. The participation of these individuals and communities is a key element in understanding the connections and interactions of the various subjects involved. The strong emotions associated with the celebration unfold in the participant’s shifting perceptions of the landscapes and places of celebration.

The celebration, like any tradition, changes and mutates over time, as the people celebrating come and go. While they are generally occasions of joy, contemporary celebrations have their share of controversy and potential for conflict. Analysing contemporary celebrations demands collaboration and negotiation with the participants. Researchers have to be attuned to the human needs and the environmental condition of the territory (Dei, 2013).

These reportages support the view that the festival is a way of constructing the landscape where the “emotional community” (Appadurai, 2001) is situated. Today, traditional festivals serve as a fulcrum around which the experiences of social groups revolve. The lives of the people living in these communities are punctuated by these festive calendars. The experience is not limited to the day of the celebration itself; participants work year-round organizing activities, involving the entire community. Knowledge is shared across generations, generating mechanisms of exchange that are fundamental to the perpetuation of the practices related to the celebration.

If contemporary celebration gives form to a negotiated landscape (Papa, 2016), these reportages offer a unique perspective on these shifting spaces. The celebrations covered engage with both rural (the Gl Cierv Deer-Man festival in Rocchetta a Volturno, Isernia) and urban (Festa del Soccorso – The Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in San Severo, Foggia) landscapes. For a variety of reasons, many of these celebrations take place in marginalised landscapes. Celebration landscapes are not only physical spaces, they become a theatre, a stage on which everyone plays their part, becoming simultaneously actor and spectator (Turri, 2006). Each of these physical landscapes accommodates its own unique corresponding geography of meaning, both subjectively and collectively.

By recomposing the world from fragments of the everyday (Geertz, 1995), the celebration combines tradition and innovation, grafting new values ​​onto established practices, attributing “new meanings to symbols of the past” (Bonato, 2020: 55). The festive landscape is a cultural construct that reflects the social dynamics and specific memories of a given human group. The connections between humans and things, between humans and natural environments, redefine our landscapes of meaning on a daily basis. As a “landscape ritual” (Ferracuti, 2015: 143), the celebration offers an intriguing perspective on the processes of “re-traditionalization” and “re-learning of local tradition” (Mirizzi, 2016: 35). The celebration is subject to continual transformation and reinterpretation in response to social and cultural change. The connections forged between humans, animals, and other natural elements contribute to the construction of knowledge and the construction of languages, encouraging novel conceptions of the world.

The phenomenon of the “new festivals” (Bonato, 2020) – such as the Festa dei Cornuti (Festival of the Cuckold) in Rocca di Canterano in Lazio, Mutonia park in Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna, and Lucca Comics and Games – demands an approach that recognizes the festival as a living and ever-evolving practice.

The festivals presented here take place across a wide range of disparate landscapes, encompassing everything from rural to urban, from post-industrial punk to landscapes of the imagination. The rituals of celebration merge with the landscape, following distinct patterns that vary significantly from one festival to another. To get a sense of this variety, consider this small selection of festive/ritual processes from some of the celebrations that were investigated and documented in the reportages.

I Nudi di Sant’Alfio (The Nudes of Saint Alphius) can be interpreted as a vehicle for processes of incorporation and socialization of the experience of suffering (Quaranta, 2006). The Piantamaggio spring celebrations of the Valnerina area are the current versions of ancient fertility rites to petition for abundant harvests. The Maggio di Accettura (Accettura May) and La foresta che cammina (The Walking Forest), both in Basilicata, came about as a result of groups of local youths who decided to reformulate the symbolic meaning of the traditional Rumit festival. Today’s Walking Forest ritual highlights the agency of the participants (Ferracuti, 2015), as they take to the streets of Satriano in costume, invoking the spirit of vegetation and taking control of their own lived experience through the practice of celebration. And then there’s ‘U pisci a mari (The Fish in the Sea), the fascinating festival in Aci Trezza in Catania. Today’s exaggerated and playful performance is a contemporary interpretation of a tradition that has been evolving and adapting for centuries (Bonanzinga & Di Mariano, 2009). The Festa del mare (Sea Festival) in Levanto in Liguria has evolved into an occasion to consider the increasingly complex relationship between modern fishing practices and the environment, within the metaphorical context of the celebration.

Contemporary events, from pandemics to the climate crisis, from societal changes to territorial changes, have a profound impact on traditional and non-traditional festivals alike. The Intangible Bonds project explores how the celebration intersects with the Anthropocene from two distinct points of view. On the one hand, focusing on the ecological perspective (Ingold, 2001), and on the other hand, considering heritage as an ongoing, dynamic process. The festival, beyond its celebratory, ritual and performative functions, proffers unique vantage points as they fluctuate and renew themselves in response to contemporary tensions and transformations (Zerilli & Pusceddu, 2024).

Current global events have reconfigured the relationship between the environment and society. The need to reevaluate our current models of development, and how we live our lives, is increasingly evident (Lai, 2020). These events seem to challenge the continuation of established cultural practices. Paradoxically, just at the moment when they might appear to have been at risk of disappearing altogether, the celebrations have found a way to reassert their relevance by adapting to current conditions.

Celebrations take place across a wide range of diverse contexts. Some of these contexts are undergoing environmental crises, or dealing with the requirement to consider new conceptions of the production of value, including value ​​arising from heritage. Faced with climate change, land management administrative conflicts and changes in regional policies, many of these celebrations have undergone dramatic changes on multiple levels. Take, for example, the case of the Désarpa (The Descent). The festival celebrates the annual return of livestock from grazing on the mountain pastures in the Aosta Valley. A lack of the resources required for the production of the local fontina cheese speciality – water and hay – has led to farmers being forced to change both the timing and the implementation of the celebration (Bonato, 2017). The increasingly palpable effects of climate change threaten the entire production process.

The celebration thus positions itself as a crucial opportunity to reflect on what is changing in our relationship with the world. Consider the multi-generational experience of the eco-artist group, the Mutoid Waste Company. After years of living and working in the Sant’Arcangelo di Romagna area, recent threats to the ongoing existence of the village of Mutonia means that their living space itself was put at risk.

The Festa del Soccorso (The Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help) in San Severo (Foggia) is a textbook example of how challenging circumstances can be overcome. A clash between legislative regulations and the traditions of the festival created an opportunity to innovate and rebuild. By promoting research and conservation strategies that leverage the cooperation and effective participation of all the parties involved, solutions were identified and put into action (Fichera & Marchesini, 2025).