Spring of Culture

Two months of widespread culture in Torre Annunziata

Spring of Culture is the festival that, from April 10th to the end of May, transforms Torre Annunziata into an open-air cultural workshop. Eighteen free initiatives take place across the city's high school auditoriums, the historic park of Villa Parnaso, Via Cifelli in Trecase, and the «Impastato-Siani» journalistic and cultural center in Boscoreale: a program that steps outside traditional cultural venues to reach young people and residents in this stretch of the Vesuvian coast, in the metropolitan city of Naples, Campania.

The festival is the public highlight of the Volwer Lab project, launched the previous November and supported by NextGenerationEU funds through a call from the Department for Cohesion Policies. The lead partner is the Eiraionos APS association, supported by the Caffè Letterario Nuovevoci association and Destinazione Italia s.r.l., under the direction of journalist Raffaele Perrotta.

One hundred and sixty students as protagonists

The hallmark of Spring of Culture is the role entrusted to schools. One hundred and sixty students from four high schools — Liceo Pitagora-Croce, Liceo De Chirico, Istituto Marconi, and Istituto Graziani-Cesaro-Vesevus — do not participate as mere spectators: they conduct interviews, manage live broadcasts on the project's web TV, and work alongside some twenty experts and technicians. It is a distributed editorial team that spends two months telling the story of their city using their own tools.

The four sections of the program

• In the Footsteps of Peppino and Giancarlo: two days dedicated to legality in honor of Peppino Impastato and Giancarlo Siani, the two journalists killed by organized crime, under the patronage of the Diocese of Nola and the municipalities of Boscoreale and Torre Annunziata.
• Face to Face: five interviews broadcast live from schools on the Volwer web TV, featuring figures from law enforcement, haute cuisine, journalism, and musical composition.
• Together in Beauty: four days of literature, theatre, and nature at Villa Parnaso, featuring prominent authors, evening performances, and an excursion on Mount Vesuvius.
• The Voice of the News: a training course on radio and podcasts in contemporary journalism, open to everyone and valid for the continuing education of journalists.

Villa Parnaso, the heart of the festival

The park of Villa Parnaso, a municipal villa with an Italian-style garden and an English-style section, hosts the busiest part of the program: morning book presentations for school groups, afternoon meetings open to the public, and evening shows. When the weather does not permit outdoor activities, events move to the auditoriums of the De Chirico and Marconi high schools without affecting the schedule.

A city telling its story differently

«We wanted to highlight the beauty that surrounds us and share it»: this is how Andrea Palmieri, president of the Caffè Letterario Nuovevoci, summarizes the spirit of the event. The stated goal is to overturn the narrative that usually accompanies Torre Annunziata, shifting the focus from decay to the places, people, and talents that the city expresses. The organizers aim to make the event a permanent fixture of the Torrese cultural spring.

What to expect if you are visiting

All events are free and do not require tickets. The festival is well-suited for a one or two-day visit to the Vesuvian area: the venues are close to each other, and on Sundays, the program includes an outing in nature, with a guided walk on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius starting from Via Cifelli in Trecase. Those arriving for the literary meetings will find a young and highly engaged audience, as the crowd is largely composed of the students who helped build the program.