Kosmopolis
dal 10/12/2002 al 15/12/2002
Segnalato da
10/12/2002
Kosmopolis
Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona CCCB, Barcelona
International Festival of Literature. For five days, the CCCB will become Kosmopolis, a festival that aims to bring together the various actors involved in literature, from writers to readers, via the different types of artists, editors and booksellers.
International Festival of Literature
'There is a curious neologism that must have been coined some two thousand five hundred years ago and this neologism, which continues to be admirable, ambitious and generous, is the word "cosmopolitan". Think about what this means, think that the Greeks defined themselves by the city of their birth: Zeno of Elea, Thales of Miletus, then Apollonius of Rhodes, and think how strange that some of the Stoics should want to change that and refer to themselves not as citizens of a country, as we now meanly say, but as citizens of the cosmos, citizens of the world, of the universe, if indeed this universe is a cosmos and not a chaos, as it often seems to be.'
Jorge Luis Borges
Kosmopolis. International Festival of Literature
11-15 December
This year we begin a biennial project: the International Festival of Literature. For five days, the CCCB will become Kosmopolis, a festival that aims to bring together the various actors involved in literature, from writers to readers, via the different types of artists, editors and booksellers. Kosmopolis is the first International Festival of Literature, with a programme that proposes other ways of seeing and experiencing the literary world, taking in all literatures and genres, in order to encourage 'contamination' between disciplines and achieve the cosmopolitanism that its name suggests.
Lovers of literature will be able to attend lectures and poetry readings, and listen to music and storytellers; to take part in workshops, talks and debates; to see shows and documentaries; to read and buy books; to live for the space of five days in a dynamic, changing literary space. During the festival they will also be able to visit the current exhibition, Cosmopolis. Borges and Buenos Aires, the fourth in the cycle 'Cities and their Writers', an exhibition centring on the figure of the Argentinian writer, whose universalist spirit fits in perfectly with the idea behind this festival.
In Kosmopolis citizens will find a meeting point with some sixty writers and poets from around the world, experts in literature, translators, oral storytellers, actors and film-makers. These figures have been chosen according to the main sections of the festival: a pan-American topography; great travellers; science fiction: an experimental mythology; Antipodes (monographic on Australian literature); Cafè Europa: Literature and change in post-dictatorial cities; oral heritage; exiles: writing and lives; writing and translation; and Borges and Buenos Aires.
Three spaces specially created for Kosmopolis are the Hall Proteo, the venue for all live performances, organised around a group that will delight us with the verses of Walt Whitman; Canal Alfa, with films, documentaries and unshown interviews; and Verbarium, a space for interactive installations using new technologies applied to the ancient art of writing.
The many activities on the programme include:
LECTURES. Alfredo Bryce Echenique and Santiago Gamboa present a vision of the cosmopolitan spirit by means of the literature of their countries; Alberto Manguel submerges us in the imaginary places of literature; Greg Sarris recovers North American oral literature; Juan Villoro talks about the concept of 'reality' in fiction, and Claribel AlegrÃa addresses the position of women in Central American literature. Colin Thubron and Cees Nooteboom are two points of reference in travel literature; as are Brian W. Aldiss and William Gibson in the science-fiction genre. Rodney Hall and Peter Cochrane present today's Australian literature for us. Carlos Fuentes and Jean-Claude Carrière offer a conceptual framework of oral literatures as the cultural heritage of humanity. We will discover further nuances of Borges with lectures by Pere Gimferrer, Edgardo Cozarinsky and MartÃn Arias.
TALKS about literature and the change in post-dictatorial societies, with a lecture by Ryszard Kapuscinski, and the participation of Pawell Huelle, Ignacio Vidal-Folch and Atxaga, among others.
ROUND TABLES about writing and lives in exile, with Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega as leading figures.
DISCUSSIONS between Maria Antònia Oliver and Núria Albó and their translators.
POETRY READINGS by JoaquÃn Sabina, Taban lo Liyong and Anita Heiss; Ginsberg's 'Howl' read by Julio Jung, and others.
SHOWS such as Modern Love, the poetic performance by Lydia Lunch; rock meets literature, and a science-fiction spectacle.
A CONCERT of Colombian vallenato music by Rafael Escalona, and rap with literary roots by Soul Divos.
ORAL STORYTELLING by Nicolás Buenaventura and Pauline McLeod.
UNKNOWN DOCUMENTARIES, some shown for the first time: one devoted to William Gibson, a monographic about Paul Auster, and 19 documentaries of oral heritage selected by the UNESCO, plus films such as Dostoevsky's Travels by Pavel Pawlikowski, Poetry in Motion by Ron Man, and Spring 1996, A Portrait by Amelle Brusq, by Leonard Cohen. These documentaries will be shown in the Canal Alfa space.
CREDITS
A production of the CCCB
Original idea and direction Juan Insua
General co-ordination BÃ rbara Roig
Teams of consultants
Xavier Maristany (intergeneric formats)
Nicholas Shrady (travel literature)
Marcial Souto (science fiction)
Bashkim Shehu (literature of the East)
Tess Renaudo (audiovisual documentation)
Julia Flanagan (Australian literature)
ValentÃn Roma (Verbarium)
Information CCCB
BÃ rbara Roig
Tel. 93 306 41 00
CCCB
Calle Montalegre 5
Barcelona
kosmopolis@cccb.org