FlipSide Festival 2023
Changing Times: FlipSide@10 saw the Festival’s tenth anniversary celebration promting a look at ther significant anniversaries.
50 years on from the publication of the hugely influential Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered by economist E.F. Schumacher, economist, campaigner and author Ann Pettifor developed themes from her book The Case for the Green New Deal and offered a ‘greenprint’ for a more sustainable future.
The Saturday saw a talk from Spanish-language poetry expert Adam Feinstein on Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda 50 years to the day since his death, complete with readings of his poems in Spanish and English translations ready by Diana Quick.
And with Ann Pettifor as one of their presiding informants, film-maker Dan Edelstyn and artist Hilary Powell revealed how they made it possible to take back control in the most life-affirming, inclusive and democratic way possible, all while sleeping in a double-bed on their own roof in a talk with video ‘We’ve Got the Power!’.
In ‘Fifty Years after Picasso’ John-Paul Stonard asked what’s become of Picasso’s reputation now. Is he still relevant? What does his art say to us now? Stonard, art historian and author of the epic Creation: Art since the Beginning delivered one of his compelling illustrated presentations, giving a personal view of Picasso and his legacy.
In ‘Just Say Yes to the NHS’ psychotherapist Penny Campling and surgeon Gabriel Weston exmined the near-scare d institution 75 years since it was born. Both speakers sketched prognoses for the NHS’s prospects from their up close perspectives.
Finally, in ‘I Could Read the Sky’ author Timothy O’Grady ruminated on the relationship between Ireland and the UK 25 years on from the Good Friday Agreement. His recently reissued poetic novel-with-photographs of that name looks at the migrant is both a mythical and marginalised figure.
