FROM FRIDAY 15 ON SUNDAY 17/12
CARME CENTER. Museum, 2
The Festival and Illustrated Book Fair You Mouth and, certainly, THE cultural activity of the month of December, when the heads, in general, they become more consumerist and less dreamer. But here is Kembo, the vegetarian and pacifist lion that Carlos Pérez and Miguel Calatayud invented for Kalandraka Editions, flagging the acceptance of the free movement of people around the world and resistance to authoritarianism. It is what Joan Fernández Vicente wanted to embody, Blackcolor, on the poster that this year illustrates the event (and the cover of our printed magazine), task assigned to the winner of the international exhibition They are from Kamalongos which hosts the festival every year. It is an exuberant show to which the illustrations of 38 books and 32 unpublished projects from countries like Argentina, Bulgaria, Mexico, poland, Italy, Brazil or Belgium. this year, the exhibition will award two awards with a financial endowment of 2.000 € each: prize for the best illustrated book published in 2023 and prize for the best unpublished illustrated book project. A novelty compared to previous deliveries, where there was a single winner of the exhibition who became the person in charge of creating the graphic image for the next edition. A change that aims to place the illustrated book at the center and make visible the work of artists regardless of whether their work has been published or not. In addition to signing this year's poster, Negrescolor will teach a drawing workshop where participants will play with the concept of positive and negative, black and white.
This year's edition is marked by a topic with a lot of resonance lately: minority and minority languages. The program contains talks, workshops and activities by guests who speak and spread minority languages, coming from Friesland, Slovenia, Catalonia or the Basque Country. The Guipuscoana Love Gurrutxaga, specialized in children's and youth literature, she affirms with conviction that professionalization is more difficult when working in a minority language and recognizes that when working on an idea, there is the word. She will teach one masterclass on word and image to the illustration students of the Barreira School. Maja Kastelic will talk about the vicissitudes of being an illustrator and belonging to a small identity community. She is Slovenian and agrees with Gurrutxaga that coming from here can be a creative advantage, but also a problem in terms of opportunities. His works reflect on the miracles of everyday life and took the big leap with the award A boy and a house, where a kid sneaks into an apartment following a cat and ends up discovering a big surprise when he gets to the attic. Another one that participates is Ike Reeder, which comes from a small northern region of the Netherlands, frisia, where Frisian is spoken. He dedicated his first work to the ship of The Wandering Dutchman and his adventurous spirit has taken him to New York, Amsterdam or South Africa to paint murals, design scenarios for creative workshops and devise illustration projects for schools. We have left the brand new winner of the National Illustration Award for last 2023, Luci Gutierrez, author ofEnglish is not easy i Self-defense manual, also from the poster of the 37 edition of Cinema Jove starring a female cinema spectator sitting in an armchair who is being passed over by all kinds of things that refer to different genres of cinema. Both parents of the Barcelona illustrator are deaf and sign language has influenced her way of communicating, topic on which he will elaborate in the talk he will offer as part of the festival and which will be translated live into sign language. This is what we can advance regarding the activities and the guests, then it is, with always, the emblematic bookstore fair, publishers and self-publishing stamps that captivate visitors to the cloister of the Carmel Center with a delightful selection of illustrated titles. The heart of the Illustrated Book Fair expands even further to accommodate the books of a select group of more than thirty exhibitors. An illustrated fauna that you can find at Media Vaca publishing houses, Ekaré, LITERA BOOKS, Kalandraka, Edelvives, kidding, Nordic Books, story, Barbara Fiore, Child Editor, Editions del Bullent and Savanna Books with their Revista Pantera project. We will also have the company of Bartleby bookstores, Leolo, United Minds, Bangarang, The Delivery Girl and The First Books, together with the illustrated projects of DXI magazine, Marcos Farina, Animals, Nupitta Pittman, Per(r)ucho risograph, Yeyei Gómez i Printed Magazine. He 2023 ends happily, one more year, with illustration by Baba Kamo. AU
