JAZZI

“Jazzi” is a three-year research project aimed at advocating a new way of living nature, through a programme for the valorisation and narration of the environmental, material and intangible heritage of the Licusati (Camerota) area, located west of Mount Bulgheria and within the Cilento National Park and the Vallo di Diano (Salerno, Italy).

Today the Park, a result of the combined work of nature and man, is a living landscape that, though it has maintained an active role in contemporary society, conserves the traditional characteristics of its origins: in the organisation of its territory, in the interweaving of its paths, in its farming and housing systems. The challenge of this research therefore becomes both cognitive and operative: observing what exists with new eyes, as well as launching innovative circuits through the regeneration and redevelopment of the structures and stories that run along the paths of the Park, especially the jazzi, which will be brought back to life and become hospitable places for new travellers. This research takes its name from the “stazzi” or “jazzi” (n. sing. jazzo, from the Latin iacere, to lie), temporary resting places that sheltered grazing animals and points that connected villages, sheep tracks and mountain pastures. Today, these buildings with a rectangular layout are unused or dilapidated, and can be found in many places on Mount Bulgheria.

The reason for an inland area
A large part of the local population has moved to urban areas – towards the coast, the North, abroad – because of the lack of employment opportunities. Most residents work in the public sector and in tourism during the summer season, marginalising the smaller towns and resources such as the area of Mount Bulgheria. Agriculture, despite traditional products, remains confined to self-production and subsistence. Yet the coastal part of Camerota is especially active on the socio-cultural level in several fields: music, art, wine and food, sport, sailing, hiking, environmental protection, volunteering and promotion of the territory. This programme aims to reclaim the slow routes and pathways, regenerating the jazzi and overnight stays through their reutilisation. The project will promote the qualities of the territory, the landscape and the local social capital and will stimulate investment, especially in the unexpressed potential of the territory itself.