Carla Boccia guest at Hortus Conclusus

Contemporary Weaves, the event promoted by Oami, Cesvot, Livorno City Itinera, and Castagneto Banca 1910, which is once again transforming the garden of Oami in Borgo San Jacopo into one of the most original spaces of the Livorno cultural summer. Guest of the third event, scheduled for Thursday, July 9, 2026 at 9:30 pm, will be the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carla Boccia, director of the Complex Operating Unit of Mental Health of Marigliano-Pomigliano (ASL Napoli 3 Sud), technical consultant at the Court of Nola and for years engaged in the promotion of an integrated care model that combines clinical skills, territorial rehabilitation and artistic dimension. The meeting will propose a reflection on the relationship between creative genius, psychic suffering, and female writing, questioning the boundary between poetic experience and mental illness. Through the contribution of contemporary psychiatry and dialogue with literature and the arts, the evening will address how fragility can transform into language, testimony, and a search for meaning, avoiding both the romantic idealization of madness and its reduction to a mere diagnostic category. Carla Boccia will bring to Livorno a professional and human experience that combines clinical, territorial, rehabilitation, and creativity. In her work, she promotes an integrated care model between pharmacology, psychotherapy, and rehabilitative practices, with a particular focus on innovative forms of treatment of mental distress inspired by art and creativity. An approach that looks at the person as a whole, without reducing them to a diagnosis, and that recognizes in words, expression, and relationships fundamental tools of the healing journey. The event, conceived by Pier Giorgio Curti, psychoanalyst, philosopher, essayist, and director of the Oami structures in Livorno, was born precisely with this ambition: to bring complex themes into public debate without weighing them down, building opportunities for lively, accessible encounters that speak not only to specialists but to anyone who feels the need to stop and listen. “With Hortus Conclusus – explains Pier Giorgio Curti – we wanted to open a space in the city where different disciplines could meet without losing their depth. Psychiatry, psychoanalysis, philosophy, poetry, and art are not separate worlds when they try to question human experience. This appointment with Carla Boccia touches a particularly sensitive point: the relationship between psychic suffering and poetic language, especially in female writing. We are not interested in celebrating fragility in an abstract way, but in recognizing its complexity. It is also from here that a community can become more attentive and capable of care. Hortus Conclusus is not a noisy festival. It is a microfestival of cultural proximity, a small summer square where thought comes down from the pedestal and returns to a relationship. In a city like Livorno, accustomed to discussion and frank speech, the O.A.M.I. garden becomes a natural place to intertwine knowledge, experiences, and questions. All events will take place in the O.A.M.I. garden, in Borgo San Jacopo 134/A, in Livorno, starting at 9:30 pm. Admission is free until seats are sold out. Reservation is recommended by calling 0586 813861 or writing to livorno@oami.it.

Hortus Conclusus 2026 – Polyphonies of the encounter. Contemporary Weaves is realized with the support and collaboration of O.A.M.I., CESVOT, Livorno City, Castagneto Banca 1910, and Itinera.

O.A.M.I. (Opera assistance to the sick and disabled) has been active for decades in the Livorno area and offers support to disadvantaged people and their families. The services offered, under the umbrella of the Health Agency of the Vast Area, are the Family Home and the Day Center for socialization of mentally disabled adults. It is directed by Dr. Pier Giorgio Curti.

THE PROGRAM

Thursday, July 9, 2026, 9:30 pm
Women on the edge of the infinite. Poetry, illness, and psychiatry
with Carla Boccia

Thursday, July 16, 2026, 9:30 pm
The voice of women in art
with Franca Pisani and Ilaria Filippelli

Thursday, July 23, 2026, 9:30 pm
What femininity for a new humanism?
with Claudia Pavoletti and Darya Majidi