Wai-te-ata Press celebrates Italian Language Week
From 19-25 October, Wai-te-ata Press joined a worldwide celebration of the 20th anniversary of Italian Language Week.
This year’s theme – Italian between Words and Images: Graffiti, Illustrations, Comics – showcased two projects sponsored by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Sydney, AUS and Accademia della Crusca in Firenze.
An exhibition of 15 comics by 20 contemporary young Italian artists staged by the Lucca Project was adopted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and promoted through their network of Italian Cultural Institutes. Themes amongst the finalists of this prestigious competition range from fantasy to dystopia, and from youth angst to environmental activism and the pandemic.
This contrasted with a zine featuring the first fumetto | cartoon in Italy and the first written example of the Italian language, all part of an 11-12th century fresco in the Church of St Clement in Rome. The fumetto is reproduced with a commentary that links past hardships with present challenges in the wake of COVID-19. The zine features “Times Uncertain,” a font riffing on a historic typeface created by the US-based Third Street Attention Agency.
Contact Wai-te-ata Press for more information: wtapress@vuw.ac.nz