Lungomare Cooperative Celebrates 20 Years with Bolzano Festival

Lungomare, a cultural cooperative founded in 2003 by Angelika Burtscher and Daniele Lupo, marks its 20th anniversary with a two-day event in Bolzano on September 30 and October 1, 2023. The program includes debates, concerts, and performances featuring artists Marzia Migliora and Martino Gamper, Moroccan performance poet Wissal Houbabi, and Viennese DJ Seba Kayan. Lungomare began as an association after Burtscher and Lupo completed design academy, aiming to create an experimental platform at the geographic, linguistic, and cultural border of South Tyrol. It became a cooperative in 2020. The anniversary also sees the publication of "AS IF – 16 Dialogues about Sheep, Black Holes, and Movement" by Spector Books (Leipzig, Germany), edited by Lupo and Burtscher, gathering 54 authors in 16 dialogues across four chapters: Activation of Contextual Practices, The Public Sphere as a Space for Action, The Sharing of Knowledge, and The Sense of Belonging. The book includes special interventions by Gamper and Migliora. Lungomare's practice emphasizes dialogue, listening, and transdisciplinary approaches, blending ethics and aesthetics to address social and political issues. The cooperative questions the effectiveness of activist language in art contexts, exploring the fluid boundary between protest and cultural production.