The video captures the moving unveiling of “Cartomastodonte”, the monumental work created by artist Daniele Papuli in collaboration with the entire community. More than just an installation, it stands as a true architecture of memory: 35,000 books saved from the pulping mill were rescued from oblivion and transformed into a vibrant structure – a plastic mass capable of welcoming and uniting the local area through creative recycling and sculptural precision.

At the Campo dei Giganti, the boundary between what is "finished" and what "might become" is as thin as a sheet of paper. It is within this furrow that Daniele Papuli situates his investigation. With his new scultografia (sculpture-graphy), Cartomastodonte, he operates a semantic graft between two materials shared by the same destiny: the olive tree and the book. The project stems from a collaborative initiative with the Polo Bibliomuseale and the Museo Castromediano of Lecce, which funneled over 35,000 books destined for pulping from libraries across Puglia via an open call. Much like the olive trees, condemned by Xylella to become the "waste" of a wounded landscape, these books were destined for destruction.

Sottrarre libri al macero per affidarli alla luce, al dialogo con gli alberi, con la pioggia e con il sole, con il transitare notturno delle stelle, vuol dire offrire alla carta che ha accolto la parola scritta un nuovo tempo, sebbene provvisorio come ogni tempo terrestre e umano: tempo di una confidenza con la bellezza, tempo di una intimità con le zolle, con il vento, con il ciclo di dissolvimento e rinascita che è ritmo e lingua della natura.

Landscape is also a dimension to be heard. On Tuesday, July 8th, the Campo dei Giganti (Field of Giants) transformed into a collective resonance chamber for a workshop led by Edoardo Marraffa, a saxophonist and composer who has explored the territories of improvised and experimental music for over thirty years. Marraffa's presence was not merely a return, but a renewing ritual: having been part of the Field since its inauguration in 2022, the musician returned to inhabit these wounded lands to guide us through an experience of listening and relationship-building through sound.

Once again this year, the Cura del Bianco (the Lime Cure) becomes a collective ritual – a sign of a community that recognizes itself in this gesture and desires to renew its bonds. The use of lime acts as a conceptual reagent on the film of reality. An eco-sustainable material traditionally used in agriculture – and as a disinfectant during epidemics – this natural white pigment triggers a process of defamiliarization of the gaze: the trunk, subtracted from the chromatism of gray and decay, emerges in its pure form, heightening the plastic power of the wood.

Following Radicate, the Artist Residencies of the project “Sulle Spalle dei Giganti” (On the Shoulders of Giants) continue in the Campo, where Xylella has redesigned the boundaries of the visible through subtraction. This second Residency understood "shadow" not as a biological void, but as a generative space: a zone of rest and care necessary to navigate environmental trauma and transform it into awareness.

This worksheet is a “reliquiary” from the Radicate ArtResidency, conducted by the Laboratorio Teatrale Residui Teatro. Originally conceived as the closing song for the performance Radicate, Alyadi did not remain confined to the "falling of the curtain." During the days of the residency, it was transformed into a mantra learned by everyone - from our hosts at Le Fattizze to anyone who participated in the Radicate experience in any capacity. Alyadi was a constant vibration that accompanied every gesture, every rehearsal, and every reflection, weaving an invisible thread between the plight of the Salento olive trees and the sorrow of Palestine.

The Radicate video-story is the testimony of an intensive immersion in the Campo dei Giganti, where the international laboratory curated by Residui Teatro, under the expert guidance of Gregorio Amicuzi and Viviana Bovino, gave life to an unprecedented ritual of regeneration from June 1st to 8th, 2025.

The project "Sulle Spalle dei Giganti" (On the Shoulders of Giants) is not only an artistic intervention but a project with a high social vocation for collective resilience. At the heart of this experience lies Radicate, the activity through which the partners worked to launch an international laboratory based on cultural barter with the community and, in parallel, a professional laboratory for artists, performers, and cultural operators.

When we launched the call to the community of Villaggio Boncore for Radicate, Michela and Sandro did not just participate; they fused their talents into a synergistic action that became, at once, a pedagogical and symbolic gesture - the very heart of that "cultural barter" that Gregorio and Viviana set in motion through the community theatre workshop methodology.