Lucca Legacy, a Comics & Games story – The Exhibition
Opening on Saturday 3 October.
From 4 to 27 October: Tuesday to Saturday, 3pm–7pm; Sunday, 10am–1pm and 3pm–7pm.
From 28 October to 1 November: 9am–7pm.
Closed on Mondays.
The exhibition ‘Lucca Legacy: a Comics & Games Story’ will remain open beyond 2 November; opening hours will be announced at a later date.
To mark its 60th anniversary, Lucca Comics & Games is opening ‘Lucca Legacy: A Comics & Games Story - La Mostra’ in the historic Palazzo Guinigi: an exhibition project that presents the Festival not as an archive to be consulted, but as a living organism to be explored, shaped and, in part, co-created alongside the ‘VisitAutori’ – as the event refers to its audience. The exhibition is organised by Lucca Crea and POLI.design – a centre for postgraduate education founded by Politecnico di Milano – under the scientific supervision of DISEGS – Department of Socio-Economic, Management and Statistical Studies, ‘G. d’Annunzio’ University of Chieti-Pescara – and with the participation of Fondo Caniparoli, the Angelo Nencetti Collection ‘Quando Lucca diventò un fumetto’ and Fondo Bono, National Central Library of Florence. Produced with the support of the Municipality of Lucca, in collaboration with Rai Teche, cultural partner, and thanks to the contribution of numerous collaborators who will take part over time.
The second floor of this historic building, one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, will be transformed over the next eight years into a permanent cultural platform, equipped with adaptive exhibition installations designed to evolve over time and to accommodate new exhibition itineraries in the future. In fact, the participants will not merely observe: as in legacy games, they will be able to physically interact with the exhibition, leaving a mark that will endure over time and altering it, thereby contributing themselves to leaving their own traces. It is an interactive experience designed to tell a collective story that is, at once, both past and future.
The project stems from a partnership with POLI.design, the postgraduate training centre founded by Politecnico di Milano and recognised as one of the top institutions in international rankings in the field of Art & Design. This collaboration is characterised by a high level of professional and institutional expertise, combining the vision, method and international prestige of the Milanese centre with the living essence of the Lucca event, to shape a space that is not simply a commemorative exhibition, but a genuine cultural entity capable of regenerating itself in the heart of the city of Lucca.
"When we envisioned this space, we didn’t want an archive to be consulted, but a living organism to be explored. Each room offers a different perspective on this sixty-year-long relationship, culminating in ‘The Vault’: there, a visitor can leave a memento, an object of their own that carries a story linked to them, and which forms part of Lucca Comics & Games. A collection, a time capsule, objects that tomorrow may become cover stories or form part of a legacy, a system of symbols to understand the present and shape the future. A space that celebrates the visitors, the composers of the collective story we have been writing together for six decades," said Emanuele Vietina, director of Lucca Comics & Games.
"Lucca Comics & Games is a story built also by those who, year after year, have taken part in the Festival. That is why we have conceived an exhibition that can embrace memories, objects and new stories, and evolve alongside its audience. The design of the spaces and interactive installations gives shape to this possibility: every visit can leave a mark and contribute to the story of future editions,” said Anna Barbara, president of POLI.design.
Accompanying the public along this journey are Luke and Clea, the two mascots created by the illustrator Sergio Algozzino: the whimsical and indomitable Clea and the introverted and thoughtful Luke guide visitors through mysteries, discoveries and surprises, offering two complementary perspectives on the same experience. The journey begins at the reception, where every visitor receives the necessary information and materials, before freely choosing how to explore the spaces: by following the traditional route, room by room; or by taking part in a paper-based game, the Check Point Legacy, which accompanies visitors along the exhibition route, inviting them to complete small missions from room to room and discover the content in a playful and interactive way, a map that enriches the itinerary with personalised touches; or even by stepping into the digital shoes of one of the two heroes via the exhibition’s dedicated app and taking on their interactive challenges. Three different ways to experience the same story, designed so that the exhibition can be visited and enjoyed multiple times, each time in a different way.
The structure of the exhibition: three levels, nine spaces – The exhibition route unfolds across three conceptual levels, each with its own narrative structure, beginning with an Intro Level which coincides with Luke and Clea's room: the gateway to the exhibition, the space where the concept of the ‘legacy game’ is introduced and where visitors choose their guide mascot and their preferred way of exploring the exhibition, before delving into the heart of the narrative.
The narrative heart of the exhibition is the Main Level, structured across six interconnected rooms. It begins with ‘Cover Stories’, the room where a collection of tales about the event is presented in LP format, to be leafed through like records in a vinyl shop: each cover features trivia and anecdotes on the back, and just like songs you listen to again after a long time, many of these stories may reawaken memories experienced first-hand. By its very nature, this room is destined to change over time, as new ‘Cover Stories’ will be created periodically using items that the public can leave in ‘The Vault’, the exhibition’s secure storage area: a special space, accessible only under specific rules, by participating via the app. Furthermore, each cover features a small electronic tag (RFID tag) which, when held close to a reader, activates extra content, such as videos, photos and animations, on an LED screen, offering a second layer of insight.
From the cover gallery, visitors move on to the Time Machine, where major historical events interact with moments from the Festival and international pop culture in a blend full of surprises. In the centre of the room is a large conveyor belt, reminiscent of those found in a laundy room, along which, instead of clothes, the event’s historic posters pass by: visitors can stop the belt by turning a control knob, pick up the poster of their choice, examine it closely and discover its history. The same room also traces the evolution of the Festival’s visual language as a whole: the twenty-four years, from 1969 to 1992, during which the poster spoke the language of cartooning through the drawings of David Pascal; the turning point in 2003, when the poster took on the pictorial style that still characterises it today, consisting of illustrations featuring the city’s iconic monuments; and finally the emergence of the annual theme, which transformed the poster into a system capable of conveying the community’s values through quotations and Easter eggs scattered by the artists, fostering a natural dialogue with the Festival’s audience, who over time have made the poster their own by reinventing it through cosplay, variations and personal reinterpretations.
The exhibition continues in the Tree of Strips room, a veritable ‘tree of life’ for the Festival, whose leaves show the names of hundreds of artists who have shaped its history: those who have designed a poster, those who have received an award, those featured on the Walk of Fame, and those whose works have been showcased in a past exhibition. Next to the tree, a dedicated area allows visitors to take a photograph and print it, before choosing whether to leave it on the wall dedicated to collective memories or keep it for themselves as a personal memento of this exhibition-journey. We then arrive at the Legacy Room, a listening space where three interactive stations present a kaleidoscope of voices, memories and experiences in rotating videos, which will change over time and where visitors themselves may even find themselves featured by submitting their own video via a dedicated form. In the same room, the exhibition’s narrative continues with a section dedicated to ‘Worlds Born of Play’, which traces the artists and moments that, decade after decade, have shaped the event as we know it today. The next room, Roll of Honour, is staged using the concept of a sushi bar: through a succession of small plates moving along a conveyor belt, an extensive ‘menu’ showcases award-winning comics and games from over sixty years of Lucca Comics & Games. This system is designed to encourage interaction among visitors, allowing them to choose and obtain a code with which they can collect a game or a book available in the next room.
The Main Level concludes with the Dreamers Room, a truly sensory experience. It is a moment of sudden, perhaps unexpected, emotion that restores to the visitor everything they may have missed or paid less attention to up to that point in their journey. Because Lucca Comics & Games has so many stories to tell from its 60-year history, but there are also countless emotions that can be rediscovered, remembered or simply listened to.
The tour concludes with a separate section comprising two closely linked spaces: from the Roll of Honour, visitors can enter the Hall of Games, where they can finally sit down at a table and play the game they chose moments earlier, and perhaps even be tempted by titles they’ve never tried before. From the Legacy Room, only at the very end of the entire exhibition tour, you can access The Vault. A unique space, not included in the standard tour and accessible only according to specific rules, linked to the experience gained whilst passing through the exhibition halls. What makes this space unique is its function: it is here that the visitor effectively becomes a ‘spect-author’ by depositing a personal memento linked to Lucca Comics & Games, and by completing a museum form with all the relevant information. A gesture that both concludes and, at the same time, reopens the legacy mechanism of the entire exhibition, because those objects may in future become a new ‘Cover Story’ or form part of the nascent Lucca Comics Museum.
Technology and design in the service of storytelling – POLI.design’s contribution extends beyond the physical design of the spaces; it directly shapes the language of the entire experience. The RFID tags, small electronic devices, attached to the Cover Stories, the Legacy Check Point and the mechanism of The Vault itself, are all devices conceived not as static elements, but as infrastructure capable of accommodating and delivering ever-changing content over time. It is in this approach that the distinctive hallmark of the design work developed in collaboration with POLI.design is recognised: the exhibition is not conceived as a finished product to be inaugurated and then preserved unchanged, but as a platform that the Festival can continue to update edition after edition, incorporating new Cover Stories, new testimonies in the Legacy Room, new objects in The Vault and new photographs on the wall of the Tree of Strips.
La mia Lucca: the call to action for fans - Through the call to action launched in recent months, we have received stories from countless visitors, enthusiasts and participants, and many more will continue to be added over time. These stories, told by those who have experienced Lucca Comics & Games over the years and the artists who have taken part in the event, recount their first experience or their most memorable moment at the Festival. A selection of the contributions will be screened in the Legacy Room: ‘La mia Lucca’ is also designed to evolve continuously as new stories are collected and screened, in perfect harmony with the evolutionary approach that underpins the entire project. The form to take part in the call to action is available at this web address.
*POLI.design
POLI.design is the centre for postgraduate education at national and international level, an integral part of the Design System at the Politecnico di Milano (ranked 1st in Italy, 3rd in Europe and 7th in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2026 for the Art & Design category). Since 1999, it has developed and consolidated its educational offering based on research, a project-based learning approach, and the Polytechnic’s expertise. From Master’s programmes to courses for professionals and bespoke programmes for organisations, POLI.design offers cross-industry programmes that impart the design mindset needed to drive transformation across different sectors. As a key player in an Italian and global network for design education, it fosters dialogue between the worlds of academia, institutions and industry.
