Kosmopolis Programme 2024
Anna Ballbona, Tina Vallès, Toni Pou, Francesco Ardolino and La Calòrica
The imperfect city by Italo Calvino
Debate
On the occasion of the centenary of Italo Calvino's birth, the writers Tina Vallès and Anna Ballbona and the journalist Toni Pou talk with Professor Francesco Ardolino about the author's survival based on one of his most evocative books: Invisible Cities.
In Invisible Cities (La butxaca, Siruela, 2023), Calvino stages a dialogue between Marco Polo's urban descriptions and the questions and doubts that Great Khan presents to him. Gradually, however, the tension over the method grows: should we multiply the possible cities or seek one that encompasses them all? The theme of the ideal city is born in the Renaissance and crosses all of modernity until it reaches the Situationist utopias, but it encounters its opposite, the imperfections of that which is found in the edges of the city, in the periphery. What is more violent, to hide it or expose it?
In this conversation with Tina Vallès, Anna Ballbona and Toni Pou, moderated by professor and expert on Italo Calvino Francesco Ardolino, we will analyze how the author, throughout his narrative and essay production, gives us uncomfortable examples, complicated itineraries and convoluted routes that lead us to reflect on our way of living in the territory and relating to others.
The event will also include the reading of several fragments of the work Invisible Cities (La butxaca, Siruela, 2023) by the actors Xavi Francés, Marc Rius and Júlia Truyol from La Calòrica.
Moderators: Francesco Ardolino
Participants: Tina Vallès, Anna Ballbona, Toni Pou, La Calòrica
This activity is part of Kosmopolis Programme 2024
Related contents
Anna Ballbona, Tina Vallès, Toni Pou and Francesco Ardolino and La Calòrica
The imperfect city by Italo Calvino
In this conversation with Tina Vallès, Anna Ballbona and Toni Pou, moderated by the expert on Italo Calvino Francesco Ardolino, we analyze how the author, throughout his narrative and essay production, gives us uncomfortable examples, complicated itineraries and convoluted routes that lead us to reflect on our way of living in the territory and relating to others.