2022
BREAD AND ROSES
Rebels Economics
“He who has two cakes of bread, let him dispose of one of them for some flowers of the narcissus; for bread is the food of the body, and the narcissus is the food of the soul.”
— Galeno di Pergamo, 2nd century AD
“[…] bread and roses, the basic necessities and the superfluous, a society where one eats better and more (not just bread), where one works better and less, but also a society where one is happier, fulfilled, free”.
— Karl Marx, 19th century AD
From Galen to Marx, from the factories of Lawrence to the poetry of James Oppenheim, and from the Middle Ages to the present day, ‘bread and roses’ is a desirable combination for a dignified human, social and political dimension. We still feel its strong appeal today. Wherever cultural work is understood as subversive of capitalist logic, rebels economics of desire flourish, giving rise to hybrid, differently sustainable, generative projects.
The last decade has seen the usual formats named festivals being questioned, favouring experiments with a ‘political’ scope, amplified by the crises in which we are immersed. Creative processes that, through the search for a new relationship between artists, audience and community, aim to activate new rights of citizenship, identifying traces of possible futures in the present. Demanding Bread (the necessary, dignified life for all) and Roses (everything that does not concern pure survival and that is often what makes life worth living), still seems to us a perfect synthesis for any inevitable becoming that is desired to be poetic and not merely necessary.
These are the topics we will be addressing during Texture, a platform for cultural experts, programmers and designers to meet and exchange ideas; which in this edition will be developed in two sessions and two different forms of meeting, live and remotely.
On 15 June at 7.30 p.m., at the RIOT Studio, in continuity with the Agora – citizen’s assembly of the people of Altofest, which will start at 6.30 p.m.
In this session, we consider it essential to listen to each other and contaminate the areas of discussion, as well as the encounter that is to be attempted between professionals and citizens.
On 16 June at 13:30, at the UOCSM ds. 29 (mental health complex operational unit) in Via Santa Maria Antesaecula, 34, in Radio Chat and live, during the usual Community Picnic.
This second session will be open to remote participation, via a Telegram connection.
Both meetings will be broadcast live on Radio Leib.
The interweaving of the dialogues is entrusted to Maurizio Alampi and Claudia Fabris. They are developing a research on “The economies of Altofest”, within the framework of Congiunzione – a dialogic and poetic practice, which invites artists from past editions of Altofest to rejoin the community, activating poetic devices of investigation and discussion on the founding principles of Altofest.
Visual thinking by Ilaria Garzillo
@ Riot Studio
Via San Biagio Dei Librai, 39
