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Krakow at Jura Unbound, Edinburgh

On August 19th, during the annual Edinburgh International Book Festival, a new wave of literary initiatives from Krakow took over the Jura Unbound event! The Jura Unbound is a celebration of niche and world literature – showcasing literature in unique settings and intertwining it with other art forms, like music and film. It is a truly interdisciplinary and hip event that is held after 9 am for two weeks in a wide variety of inviting locations.

This year Jura Unbound welcomed 3 innovative authors and literary figures from Krakow: Piotr Marecki (Ha!art Corporation), Łukasz Orbitowski and Sławomir Shuty, who engaged audiences on the following topics:

 

New Wave Krakow: Contemporary literary arts in the youngest City of Literature

Sławomir Shuty and Łukasz Orbitowski discussed a side of Kraków not typically featrured in tourist guidebooks or on the official channels of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature. Shaby local bars and illegal flee markets constitute the background for their fiction. They talked about the popularity of Kraków as a setting of popular horror stories and fantasy novels, as well as Slavic motifs, which became the obsession of some local and international authors. They also spoke about the phenomenon of Nowa Huta, the communist socrealist district (Sławiomir Shuty’s  artistic pseudonm, “Shuty”, is the phonetic transcription of the words “z Huty”, which means “from Huta””).

 

Polish Experimental Writing in the Digital Age

Polish digital literature has a rich tradition to build on, in particular the Polish experimental literature and demoscene to avant-garde filmmakers associated with the Warsztat Formy Filmowej (Film Form Workshop). With a rather isolated position on the international scene and a separate, a unique historical background contributes to the distinctiveness of Polish digital literature.

 

Both events are organized in cooperation with Krakow Festival Office and the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Programme.

Krakow earned the prestigious UNESCO title in October 2013 and joined the ranks of Edinburgh, Melbourne, Iowa City, Dublin, Reykjavik and Norwich.

Starting today (August 1st), in the very centre of Krakow and on the corner of the Main Square and Bracka St., it will be possible to read poetry from 7 UNESCO Cities of Literature ! As part of the “Multipoetry” project, during the first week of every month, on the wall of the Potocki building, poems from the members of the Creative Cities Network’s literary cities: Dublin, Edinburgh, Iowa City, Krakow, Melbourne, Norwich, and Reykjavik, will be projected. Everyday a poem from a different city will be presented in Polish and English.

The poetry projection project was started in this spot by the Poemat Foundation in 2002. The project began as part of the “366 poems in 365 days” initiative organized by Michał Zabłocki. In central tourist locations in Krakow and Warsaw, on the facades of two buildings, every day throughout the year, 366 of Zabłocki’s poems were projected. This was a world premiere of an entire volume of poetry presented in a one-of-a-kind fashion: on a wall. From this point forward, poetry has been everpresent on the facade of the building at the corner of the Main Square and Bracka St.

The concept of this project is an ideal fit with the strategy of the UNESCO Cities of Literature, whose key goal is to build and strengthen international cooperation. The idea was born during the international conference “Creative Cities and Regions”, which took place in Krakow, October 2012, as part of the Reading Malopolska project. This is the first project organized on this scale together with all the UNESCO Cities of Literature, since the release of the short films prepared in May of this year as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of the legendary book “Finnegans Wake” by James Joyce.

Read more about the poems and the poets here.

In order to participate in the project, go here.

The organizers of this project are the Krakow Festival Office and the Poemat Foundation

Partners of the project: UNESCO Cities of Literature, including Dublin, Edinburgh, Iowa City, Melbourne, Norwich, and Reykjavik

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