About

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The Decameron is a ten day festival of intimate, cafe-style stories told by a wide range of voices and artistic disciplines, presented from within a symbolic contemporary catastrophe scenario: a post-earthquake disaster area.

After passing through a rigorous entrance checkpoint, the audience is welcomed into a creative eden called the Oekolos, a haven of hope in dark times. The Oekolos resembles a living ecosystem, connecting the space, the performers and the audience with functional and interactive art installations.

Boccaccio’s original Decameron (1351), a frame story about the plague in medieval Florence, heralded a new era in Western Europe. Its collection of critical and satirical stories, told by the independent voices of seven young women and three young men, paints a lively and transparent picture of humanity in a transitional state. More than six hundred years later, in this festival version of the Decameron, our contemporary catastrophe scenario serves as a foil to engage both artist and audience in a deeper exploration of what it is to be now.