19th Lectorinfabula Festival and Exhibition of Satirical Cartoons, on the theme: "Measuring the World".
"Measuring the World" is the theme of the 19th edition of the Giuseppe Di Vagno Foundation's (1889-1921) annual cultural festival "Lectorinfabula" and of the satirical political cartoons'exhibition organized by its Librexpression/Libex Centre, for the promotion of freedom of expression and political satire.
The 'Lectorinfabula' festival https://www.lectorinfabula.eu/ will take place in Conversano (BA) from 19 to 24 September 2023.
It proposes more than 100 events open to all in various historical locations in the upper town of Conversano from 19 to 24 September 2023. Debates, debates, book presentations and interviews, photographic and satire exhibitions, workshops and laboratories for schools, film screenings, meetings with authors and live readings, with dozens of guests from all over Europe: authors, opinion leaders, journalists, scholars and intellectuals, editorial cartoonists. Casting a glance beyond the borders to get out of the confines of one's own backyard and set one's eyes beyond the horizon is the Festival's fascinating and ambitious goal. It is the challenge that the Foundation faces every day: to support the public debate and stimulate continuous reflection on our present.
 |
| Ramses - Cuba |
The exhibition of satirical political cartoons will be hosted in the Cloisters of the San Benedetto Monastery, where it will remain open to the public until the end of the year.
It presents a selection of 96 cartoons by 40 famous international editorial cartoonists. A selection from the 1,750 political satire cartoons published since March 2020 - the date of its creation - by the Foundation's web magazine: www.pagina21.eu. The themes addressed - with talent, irony and sometimes black humour - are those that are shaking the world: the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, geopolitics and numerous conflicts, climate change, Europe and Italian politics, violence against women, artificial intelligence.
Measuring the world has always inspired Homo sapiens for better or worse. Too often for the worse, as in drawing boundaries or conquering the territory and wealth of "Others". It has certainly allowed us, through our inventive genius, to imagine that we are able to dominate nature. However, humanity - or at least those who consider themselves its leaders - is reluctant to consider the innumerable limits of its predatory activity, limits that have now been exceeded and threaten its very existence. The beginning of the second decade of the 21st century is likely to be that of a revolution that will change the future of humanity.
 |
| Marco De Angelis - Italy |
A revolution, whether successful or not, is never spontaneous or born out of nothing. It is always the result of a more or less long period during which, to paraphrase the French playwright Pierre Corneille, 'the fire that seems extinguished often sleeps under the ashes'. For some years now, we have been living through a period where, in addition to geopolitical tensions and the competition of the great powers for access to raw materials and world domination, the fire of the negative effects of science and productivism is re-emerging from the ashes, creating social and climatic dysfunctions that are increasingly numerous and difficult to control.
It would seem that, beyond its inventive qualities, its artistic gifts, its capacity for abstraction, its spirituality and its limited generosity, Homo sapiens has inscribed selfishness, violence and submission in its genes. Too many facts give a sad picture of this: the persistence of wars with their cohorts of crimes and suffering, displacement and migration of populations; inequalities and poverty at national and international levels; violence against women and gender inequalities; a poorly aware relationship with politics, if not total disinterest; and voluntary servitude to new technologies. In spite of so many positive aspects, electronic tools and artificial intelligence could put an end to models of societies based on direct human relationships and turn man into a machine or make him a succubus of technologies and those who control them.
A 72-page, full-colour, printed catalogue captures, with commentaries, the works on display in the exhibition.
The sixth issue of the Libex Journal, "The new international extemporaneous satirical journal for dancing on the deck of the Titanic", is dedicated to an analysis of the impact of artificial intelligence. 24 pages of articles written by scholars and journalists, illustrated with satirical cartoons by authors from all over the world.
 |
| Lido Contemori - Italy |