Cultural activities mark the beginning of the Dénia Festival de les Humanitats

Wednesday, 26 de October 2022

• The Festival's cultural program has started with an interesting conference on humanities and science, and a literary day dedicated to the work of Rafael Chirbes.
• The cultural activities, open to the public, will continue until Saturday, October 29, in different locations in the city of Dénia.

Culture and thought have been the main protagonists in the first days of parallel activities of the Dénia Festival de les Humanitats.

The cultural programming of the Festival began last Monday, October 24, with a large gathering of the public at the Municipal Public Library of Dénia, to attend the conference “Proximity Dialogues. Humanities and sciences in a changing world”, by the intellectual and writer Javier López Alos and the physicist, writer and lecturer Vicent Botella.

This dialogue about change, from physics and philosophy, invited deep reflection: a conversation between sciences and humanities with the aim of understanding a little more how we reason, to think better and make fewer mistakes.

Javier López Alós, writer and expert in the history of political thought, contemporary philosophy and culture, proposed an analysis of the concept of change and the particularity of the changes that human beings face at this historical moment, “characterized by their capacity anxiogenic, to the point of being able to be called mutations," said López Alós, who also made reference to the "slow present" in which we live, which has to do with the idea of a time without past, present or future, "a continuous present , without marks that allow comparison and, therefore, distinguish the change.”

For his part, Vicent Botella Soler, doctor in physics, data scientist and writer, specialized in the study of complex systems and computational neuroscience, highlighted the concept of reversible and irreversible changes that humans face.

The mayor of Dénia, Vicent Grimalt, was in charge of presenting one of the most outstanding events of the cultural programming of the Dénia Festival de les Humanitats, the Literary Conference “Territorio Chirbes: keys to its writing”, which was held yesterday, Tuesday, 25 October, at the Municipal Public Library of Dénia.

In the words of Vicent Grimalt, “in a festival aimed at thinking and rethinking the world, a space dedicated to one of the best contemporary Valencian writers and resident of our region like Rafael Chirbes could not be missing; who best knew how to reflect in such a raw and honest way on how we have treated our closest territory during the last decades.”

This interesting literary meeting allowed us to discover the keys to Chirbes' work and reflect on it. The day began with the screening of the talk "Open City (Runes i Progrés)" at the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (2014), to give way to two interesting conferences: “The ethical and moral ruin of capitalist society according to with the work of Rafael Chirbes”, by Jacobo Llamas Martínez, professor at the University of León; and “(Re)write the territory. The Valencian coast as a palimpsest in the narrative of Rafael Chirbes”, by Aina Vidal, researcher in Literary Studies at the Open University of Catalonia. Both conferences allowed us to offer, based on Chirbes's literary portraits of Valencian society, an interesting vision of the ethical and moral ruin of a part of current society and of the representation of the Mediterranean coast in current novels, as an example. of what we do not want to repeat in the territory's development models.

The literary day dedicated to Rafael Chirbes closed with a round table that invited the large audience to analyze and debate Chirbes' "Diaries", and which included the participation of the writer Alfons Cervera, the journalist Marina Lesouef and Mª José Micó (president of the Rafael Chirbes Foundation).

The cultural programming of the Dénia Festival de les Humanitats continues today, Wednesday, October 26, at 7 p.m., at the Center d`Art l`Estació de Dénia, with the inauguration of the exhibition “Self-portrait” A haptic or tactile NFT, created by the Spanish multidisciplinary artist involved in social activism Amparo Sard. This exhibition, with free entry, will allow the public to contemplate an unusual artistic work, as it is the first haptic NFT that transcends from the visual to the tactile, creating a new trend in the world of modern art.

The programming of cultural activities will continue until next Saturday, October 29, with various shows open to the public.

On Thursday, October 27, at 6:30 p.m., in the lobby of the Dénia Maritime Station, the David Vento Dance Theater company will offer the contemporary dance show 'Indala'.

Musical shows and workshops will be offered on Marqués de Campo Street in Dénia, led by the Dénia Musical Artistic Group and the Dénia Tenor Cortis Conservatory. These performances will be held in different sections of Marqués de Campo Street on Friday, October 28, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and on Saturday, October 29, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

To close the program, on Saturday, October 29, after the closing ceremony of the Festival, the Muixeranga de la Marina Alta will perform, in the square of the Social Center, accompanied by the group Canya Badà. The cultural program will close on Saturday afternoon with a swing workshop and exhibition by the La Marina Lindy Hop School in Dénia, which will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., in the Plaza del Consell de Dénia.

Dénia Festival of Humanities

Dénia Festival de les Humanitats is an initiative of the Generalitat Valenciana, the Dénia City Council, Baleària and the Dénia Ciutat Creativa Foundation, directed by Josep Ramoneda and Jordi Alberich, and coordinated by La Maleta de Portbou. Its founding objectives include: the intention to become an annual event for reflection and dialogue on the human condition. Offer civil society an open forum where they can participate with top-level experts in the field of humanistic thought. Promote training in values and knowledge of the roots and history of the human being. Value and promote the humanities as a field of knowledge to form citizens with critical thinking. Turn Dénia into a reference for thought, reflection and the humanities in the Mediterranean.