10 October 2010 6 senses expanded with two festivals
The Czesław Miłosz International Literary Festival and Unsound Festival will be a part of the “6 senses” project from the next year. Letters of intent in this matter were signed today by: Jacek Majchrowski – Mayor of Krakow and Małgorzata Płysa – Manager of the Tone Foundation organising the Unsound Festival and Grzegorz Gauden – Director of the Book Institute organising the Czesław Miłosz Festival.
Both Festivals hold a significant position on the Polish cultural scene. They attract, one hand, international intellectual environments (Miłosz Festival) and, on the other hand, persons from all parts of the world who are involved in independent electronic music. Including them in the “6 senses” project will help to build even more effectively the image of Krakow as a city that is ready to compete with other European cultural and tourist centres.
The Czesław Miłosz International Literary Festival was inaugurated in Krakow five years after the death of the Noble prize winner. During the Festival, Krakow’s guests are most outstanding poets from various countries and various generations, including those who received the Noble Prize. The first edition of the festival, entitled „Zniewolony umysł” (The Captivated Mind), consisted of poetry evenings, panel discussions, film shows and a number of accompanying events held in various sceneries, e.g. interiors of the Tempel Synagogue and St. Catherine’s Church, the Old Theatre and Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiellonian University, Manggha and Alchemia. Further editions of the Festival will be organised in Krakow every two years, and their guiding motif will be titles of literary works by Czesław Miłosz. In the next year, on the 100th anniversary of Miłosz’s birth, the primary slogan of the Festival will be “Rodzinna Europa” (Family Europe).
Unsound Festival was created in 2003 in Krakow as a festival of progressive music. However, its roots date back to a provincial Australian town Wagga Wagga, where the first event under the aegis of Unsound took place. Although today Unsound is organised by another team of people on the other hemisphere, and the event itself has its own trajectory and profile, the name of the festival held in Wagga Wagga has survived. Firstly an underground event, the festival has definitely gathered momentum and gained wide recognition in recent years. With the co-operation of local partners, smaller events were also organised in Prague, Warsaw, Bratislava, Kiev and Minsk. The originators of Unsound Festival put special stress on the trans-border co-operation and the development of the festival as a tool enabling the ordering and development of new musical and artistic projects. An equally important task is the promotion of Polish artists and, on a more global scale, artists working east of Berlin.
6 senses – this project has been implemented since 2008 and it aggregates a group of prestigious and spectacular festivals from various fields of art (e.g. Sacrum Profanum, Misteria Paschalia, Film Music Festival, ArtBoom Tauron Festival, Selector Festival, International Theatre Festival “Divine Comedy”, Off Plus Camera, Month of Photography, Polish Music Festival and the Joseph Conrad International Literature Festival). The organisers of the project are convinced that a bloc of strong events of international importance can constitute a great promotion tool both for festivals themselves and the city which actively participates in their organisation. The project is not only an innovative tool of successful promotion of these events, but also a guarantee of their development through a long-term plan of Krakow’s commitment to their effective performance with stress on the maintenance of artistic quality, attractiveness and uniqueness of the program. The “6 senses” brand, in interaction with municipal investments in infrastructure, transport and tourism, should help Krakow to gain considerable publicity in Poland and abroad in the years to come.
