Friday, June 17, 2022

KROKODIL FESTIVAL: The Year of Magical Thinking

LOCATION 1: Center for Cultural Decontamination, Birčaninova 21, Beograd

 

“The Year of Magical Thinking is a title we owe to the recently deceased American author and essayist Joan Didion, whose insight into the roads travelled by the human species through the XX and XXI centuries, and her memorable descriptions of societal unrest and psychological fragmentation have left an important mark on the way we experience the contemporary world. Taken from her eponymous autobiographical book that talks of her facing the sudden death of her husband and terminal illness of her only daughter, this title, of course, represents a direct homage to the insuperable writer. However, it also directs our attention towards the collective, global, extremely complex trauma the population of planet Earth is facing today. In a direct head-on collision with the certainty of environmental apocalypse, new and mysterious pandemics, aggressive, bloodthirsty dictators with their fingers on the triggers of nuclear weapons powerful enough to destroy all of humanity, and the extreme stupidity and blindness of the human species that, due to the development of communications technologies, has been unveiled before us in all its splendour while as Arthur Koestler said, we “sleepwalk toward Armageddon”, it would seem we are unable to fully comprehend where we have led our civilisation. And in return, where our civilisation has led us. Connecting Emerging Literary Artists 

WHEN: Sunday, 19 June, from 7 PM PARTICIPANTS: CELA (Connecting Emerging Literary Artists) – Arianna Bonazzi (Italy), Andraž Rožman (Slovenia), Lisa Weeda (The Netherlands) and translators Ana Popović, Jelena Dedeić, and Bojana Budimir. Programme moderator: Mima Simić. POETS SOUNDS – speech art trio SPRECHBOHRER (Germany), Tone Avenstroup (Norway), Katalin Ladik (Hungary) and Miia Toivio (Finland). Programme moderators: Dragan Protić Prota and Florian Neuner. ADMISSION: Free LIVE STREAM: No online stream DEBATE PROGRAMME