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Orwell Day

Orwell Day 2018

Language, truth and politics

In its 2018 Orwell Day programme, the CCCB upholds freedom of expression with a lecture by the journalist and activist Masha Gessen.

In these post-truth times and attacks on freedom of expression, the word is no longer used to communicate facts and opinions but is submitted to the aims of power, thus becoming more than ever before a means for manipulation and repression. In the Europe of the years between the world wars George Orwell testified to this submission of the word to political aims and now, well into the twenty-first century, this situation is recurring, not only at the fringes of Europe but at its very heart. How can we defend democracy from the assaults of demagogic discourse? How can we guarantee full exercise of freedom of expression?

As it does every year, the Association of the International Museum of the Spanish Civil War (AMIGCE) will organise literary routes through George Orwell’s Barcelona (6 and 13 June). For more information and registration see  www.diaorwell.com.

Orwell Day 2018 coincides with an exhibition of Santiago Sierra’s censored work “Presos polítics en l'Espanya contemporània” (Political Prisoners in Contemporary Spain) and several other simultaneous activities.

 

This activity is part of Orwell Day

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Masha Gessen

Imagination and Democracy

In the framework of the Orwell Day, the journalist Masha Gessen defends imagination as a necessary tool for reviving the ideal of democracy and countering the assaults of totalitarianism. 

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Previous activities

Masha Gessen

Imagination and Democracy

Routes through Orwell’s Barcelona

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