{"id":5114,"date":"2025-08-01T00:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T22:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/?p=5114"},"modified":"2025-08-01T00:03:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T22:03:20","slug":"a-creative-surge-european-summer-of-exhibitions-and-festivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/a-creative-surge-european-summer-of-exhibitions-and-festivals\/","title":{"rendered":"A creative surge: European summer of exhibitions and festivals"},"content":{"rendered":"

4 SEPTEMBER-16 NOVEMBER. ROMAEUROPA FESTIVAL \/ ROME, ITALY<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0European imagination as the fuel for change<\/strong><\/p>\n

The spirit of Romaeuropa, festival of music, dance, theater, digital arts and creation for children, is truly European. Born in Rome at Villa Medici-Accademia di Francia, REF has developed in a network with the Academies and European cultural institutes of the city, thriving in artistic and cultural dialogue between European countries and with the world. It is with this capacity for listening, the sensitivity to intercept and interpret the direction of the present and the predisposition to experimentation, that it presents its fortieth edition. For artistic director Fabrizio Grifasi, REF “explores the power of imagination as a force for change, putting artistic visions in dialogue with the concrete challenges of the present” through 110 shows brought to the stage by more than 700 artists from around the world. The program explores different atmospheres, ranging from Ballet Nacional de Espa\u00f1a (guest for the opening night on September 4 at Rome’s Opera House), to the cine-concert dedicated to “Whiplash,” to the performance with 6,500 meters of fabric by Miet Warlop, to Kae Tempest, Alessandro Baricco, up to Tarta Relena, Spanish duo with a repertoire of ancestral Mediterranean sounds and electronic music, guests of the brand new Ultra REF platform dedicated to young people and multidisciplinary contaminations.<\/p>\n

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15-22 AUGUST. SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL \/ SARAJEVO, BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA<\/em><\/p>\n

Cellars, trees, Sarajevo mon amour<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jovan Divjak, the most beloved general of Sarajevo’s resistance during the siege, had said that the trees had saved the city twice. First by protecting Sarajevans from Serbian snipers stationed in the hills above the city, then by offering wood to keep warm during winters without electricity and gasoline. As Adriano Sofri recounted in Il Foglio, the trees have grown back today. But traces of the siege remain, the shrapnel and bullet holes on building facades, and somehow the legacy, like that of the Sarajevo Film Festival, born during the siege and inaugurating its thirty-first edition. It had all begun in a cellar, with a generator, some gasoline canisters obtained thanks also to Susan Sontag’s help, and weekly screenings of surviving classics from the library, which ended before the 10 o’clock curfew. Admission cost one cigarette and Sarajevans defied snipers to meet and live. Already during the war, those screenings had become the incubator and training ground for the subsequent generation of Bosnian filmmakers (twenty-year-old Jasmila Zbanic, director of “Quo vadis, Aida?”, volunteered there), as well as an irresistible magnet for international intellectuals. Today the festival is the main event in the Balkans and looks to the future \u2013 in 2023 founder Mirsad Purivatra resigned to make room for young people. Sarajevo, my love<\/em>, sang Kemal Monteno, in the anthem of the city with humanity so great as to create culture during Europe’s longest siege.<\/p>\n

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7 JUNE-28 SEPTEMBER. THE SHAKERS: A WORLD IN THE MAKING \/ WEIL AM RHEIN, GERMANY<\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t want to be remembered as a chair<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sister Mildred Barker complained about not wanting to be remembered as a chair. She was a spiritual leader of the Shaker church, a religious group established in the United States in the eighteenth century, whose furniture has influenced generations of architects and designers for its minimalist aesthetic \u2013 rather, modest, because they preferred quality materials, like maple wood, to proud ornamentation. The exhibition “The Shakers: A World in the Making” at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein goes beyond fetishization to explore the philosophy of this strange confession, and its usefulness in the present. Design was the concrete expression of a value system based on community welfare, equality, pragmatism and a sense of divine order. Simplicity was radical and functional, starting from the object hooks along the walls to be able to nimbly free the room from chairs (modular) and dance \u2013 dances were a fundamental moment of function and prayer. Work itself was a form of spirituality, and the Shakers did not disdain technology and mass production of the crafts they sold to sustain themselves. The exhibition setup includes original pieces and seven commissioned works that dialogue with Shaker values, today.<\/p>\n

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30 AUGUST-14 SEPTEMBER. VISA POUR L’IMAGE \/ PERPIGNAN, FRANCE<\/em><\/p>\n

Images to tell the world<\/strong><\/p>\n

To tell a story honestly requires much study, sensitivity to illuminate significant details and then insert them within a context. To give a perspective without the presumption that it is absolute truth. Journalism, whether written, spoken or in images, means asking questions, seeking answers and making the complexity of the world accessible, not flattening it or oversimplifying it. This is the work of the reporters selected by “Visa pour l’image” in Perpignan, the most important global photojournalism event. The works that will be presented this year tell of major events, big news, like the collapse of Bashar el Assad’s regime in Syria, the fires in California, the disastrous consequences of climate change, but also lesser-known phenomena and stories like synthetic drug trafficking in Iraq, the war in Kashmir, the rites of animist spirituality in Madagascar. The award for the most relevant humanitarian work was given to Gazan photoreporter Saher Alghorra: his latest photos, the heartbreaking ones of mothers holding their children dying of hunger in Gaza, were published by the New York Times. Among the works selected in Perpignan, the images of life in Gaza by photographer Fatma Hassona are also exhibited, killed at twenty-five with her family in April by Israeli bombs.<\/p>\n

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26-31 AUGUST. REYKJAV\u00cdK JAZZ \/ REYKJAV\u00cdK, ICELAND<\/em><\/p>\n

In Iceland everybody wants to be a cat<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many international artists who fly to Iceland’s windy landscapes to shoot scenic (and free) music videos among geysers and glaciers. Like Marco Mengoni, Ligabue, Pinguini Tattici Nucleari, to name few Italians. But who are the local artists? Iceland has a very lively musical scene and jazz culture, which is expressed every year during Reykjav\u00edk Jazz (this year August 26-31). For this island of four hundred thousand inhabitants, jazz is such a serious thing that there exists a website that keeps constantly updated track of all the tracks and albums released in the country. Spending an evening at the Harpa auditorium, overlooking the harbor, or in the other spaces hosting the festival, to enjoy one of the concerts of any atmosphere, genre and style of jazz, is an appealing alternative to finding yourself on the moor with noisy gangs of organized tours.<\/p>\n

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21-25 AUGUST. ST MORITZ ART FILM FESTIVAL (SMAFF) \/ ST MORITZ, SWITZERLAND<\/em><\/p>\n

Emerging virtualities in the Alps<\/strong><\/p>\n

St. Moritz entered our Italian imagination (as well as being a place not accessible to most) through “Vacanze di Natale 90,” a cult re-semanticized film thanks to the sentiment that moves the sun and the Italian market<\/em>, namely nostalgia. The St. Moritz Art Film Festival moves from opposite premises, the festival of avant-garde art cinema and video founded and directed by architect and curator Stefano Rabolli Pansera, also director of Bangkok Kunsthalle and Khao Yai Art Forest. Built with a curatorial approach from exhibitions, each year it explores a theme that the films traverse \u2013 whether experimental cinema or hybrid artistic forms of moving image. The 2025 edition “Emerging virtualities” investigates the changing boundaries between real and virtual, between natural and representation, between physical and immaterial. The films (worth noting the strong presence of Asian artists), but also the debates and exhibitions, open to new forms of presence and perception, to new dimensions of reality, which multiply possibilities. Worlds generated in VR, documentary investigations made with artificial intelligence, digital landscapes that probe memory, technologies to access myths and nature, immaterial realities that bring forth unequivocally real feelings.<\/p>\n

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8-10 AUGUST. FLOW FESTIVAL \/ HELSINKI, FINLAND<\/em><\/p>\n

Summer’s most civilized and hipster festival\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine a festival without lines and with clean bathrooms. We could stop there, but let’s continue: no tokens, trash, dried-up hot dogs, but ten stages accessible to all. It’s not a dream, it’s the Flow Festival in Helsinki, blueprint of all hipster festivals in the world, where people gather to celebrate the last sun of summer. The musical program, of very millennial taste, is a balanced mix of international names \u2013 including this year brat girl Charli XCX, Burna Boy and French duo Air \u2013 and more sought-after artists, with particular attention to the local electronic scene. Everything is curated down to the smallest details, past editions offered an herbal garden to pick spices and flavor your drinks (even alcohol-free) and fresh flowers to weave garlands. It’s also a gastronomic festival with pop-up restaurants by great chefs, fine dining and street food with sustainable raw materials, entirely vegetarian, vegan menus or with fish strictly caught in Finland, and there’s also a Georgian-Ukrainian restaurant. For many years it has taken place in a former power plant in a post-industrial area of the Finnish capital, now in full real estate development, it has always been plastic-free and carbon-neutral. An Italian friend who has been attending for ten years says: “There’s so much light, so much Tove Jansson, everyone is happy.”<\/p>\n

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UNTIL 25 AUGUST. CORPS ET \u00c2MES \/ PARIS, FRANCE<\/em><\/p>\n

Bodies on display, and the invisible light of consciousness<\/strong><\/p>\n

The collective exhibition “Corps et \u00c2mes,” curated by Emma Lavigne with works from the Pinault Collection at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, explores the representation of the human body in contemporary art, the link between body and soul through the works of more than forty artists. The fil rouge of the exhibition, says Lavigne in an interview, is not the ambition to figurativity or realism, but rather the gesture of making the body “a seismograph that records the tremors of the world.” Art captures vital energy, the inner life that emerges expressively in the body, and brings to light the invisible of consciousness. After a kind of prelude, in which the bathers of Ghanaian Gideon Appah dialogue with the telluric women of Cuban Ana Mendieta’s videos, the path proceeds through thematic areas. From the body as witness to political struggle, to that exposed to violence, dissection, sexualization, as in “Beauty Examined” by Kerry James Marshall. Up to the body investigated in artistic research as spiritual, existential tension, where art becomes an antidote to the transience of flesh \u2013 culminating in Georg Baselitz’s self-portraits. Also on display are the works of photographer Deana Lawson, singer of the African-American working class, contemporary naturalist.<\/p>\n

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1-25 AUGUST. EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE \/ EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND<\/em><\/p>\n

Creativity and joy all in one<\/strong><\/p>\n

When in 2013 Phoebe Waller-Bridge brought “Fleabag” to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, she was alone on stage, had raised money on Kickstarter and rented an apartment with two beds for eight people. She hoped some spectator would show up. She didn’t imagine that show would become a theater success and a BBC TV series winning four Emmys and two Golden Globes. Among the more than 3,600 shows of this edition, many hope to live this parabola, because anything can happen at the Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival: almost 50 thousand performances in 265 spaces. The spirit is to give a stage to anyone who has a story to tell and everyone a place to listen to it (there are hundreds of free shows or pay-what-you-can). Theater, circus, stand-up, music, dance, cabaret, children’s shows, the program is dizzying and in the 2025 edition gives space to some threads: rebel women, the apocalypse, the paranormal, nostalgia, queer joy, living with illness, rave and club culture, science and technology. Besides orienting yourself with newspaper selections (like the Guardian) or theaters, the Fringe is running into an artist on the street or entering a random pub (every space that has a room hosts events) and letting yourself be involved in the atmosphere of joy that vibrates in the city. It’s indeed joy the reason why the Fringe was born, to rebuild the country’s spirit after World War II. Today, 78 years later, it’s the world’s greatest concentration of artistic freedom and creative energy.<\/p>\n

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29-31 AUGUST. BBC GARDENERS’ WORLD FAIR \/ ESSEX, UNITED KINGDOM<\/em><\/p>\n

The garden against linear time<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Olivia Laing writes in “The Garden Against Time” (Il Saggiatore), frequenting the garden means “entering a different relationship with time: a circular relationship, not linear.” The seasons alternate, and with them the editions of the BBC Gardeners’ World Fair, which offers a spring appointment in May and an autumn fair, the last weekend of August, in Saffron Walden in Essex, at Audley End residence. Here gardening enthusiasts will be able to meet and be inspired by floriculturists, garden designers, botany experts, border specialists and every type to cultivate garden culture. Hoping that the weather holds up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4 SEPTEMBER-16 NOVEMBER. ROMAEUROPA FESTIVAL \/ ROME, ITALY \u00a0European imagination as the fuel for change The spirit of Romaeuropa, festival of music, dance, theater, digital arts and creation for children, is truly European. Born in Rome at Villa Medici-Accademia di Francia, REF has developed in a network with the Academies and European cultural institutes of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":34,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5114"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5214,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5114\/revisions\/5214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foglioeuropeo.ilfoglio.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}