This is the special end-of-year issue of Le Monde des Livres.
«Which book do you like to give the most? » Sixteen writers, intellectuals and artists reveal the work they like to share the most.
The issue is fully illustrated.
I created this image in a moment of confusion.
I thought that no one ever thinks about how many times an artist or a researcher runs into difficulty, in everyday life to preserve his/her intellectual freedom.
Whoever looks, observes the result of constant work of balance, tenacity and focusing.
And for balance, it is necessary to put one step after another. And this is the process, what allows growth.
Best wishes to everyone a happy holiday with a lots of rest.
Walking through the fog – digital collage 2023, unpublished
Emanuela commissioned me to do a job that, in my imagination, is commissioned from great artists: an ex-libris.
Michele, her partner, works in the cinema and has great passions.
I felt invested with a great responsibility. I put the idea of the “visionary” of the “gaze” at the center of this work. I fully tuned in with Michele because we share the need to watch.
These are the sketches, the three images I made and the final stamp.
The protagonist talks about the wonderful atmosphere of the Svitávka library.
The article gives a sense of fullness and envelopment that the library and its books give to readers.
The first image represents the library as a sort of internal place and a state of mind. The second one is the love that young readers have for books, love that the author found in her meetings.
By Markéta Pilátová
BEHIND THE SCENE
Emmanuel La Parra and the team of the Association Forum Philo Le Monde, called me to work for the Philo Forum 2023 which took place in Le Mans on 24-25-26 November 2023.
The theme of the Festival was:
The actuality of nostalgia.
I focused, first of all, on the concept of nostalgia.
How to communicate this ephemeral feeling?
I first thought of clouds and water because nostalgia is something that envelops and permeates us when we are struck by it.
But it didn’t end here.
The subtitle of the 2023 edition of the Philo Forum is: Would tomorrow be better?
The image, therefore, for me, developed with a great symmetry: one part would call the other.
Yesterday would call tomorrow.
Therefore, I developed the sketch with a great symmetry: one part would recalled the other.
Yesterday would called tomorrow.
The act of immersion had to be increasingly simple, making sure that the protagonist had a finger immersed in water and looked at a “new” sun: tomorrow. The protagonist need to be as minimally characterized as possible.
Obviously, I gave voice to the color: I let it speak as usual.
Nature staged through the centuries and new representations. Between folklore and narrative innovation.
Cover and Dossier illustrations as pubblished by Hystrio magazine
Expand the space and find more to grow, by Marie-Laure Durand.
as published in Panorama magazine
I was very emotional reading the words of the Icelandic writer Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir.
In his article for Internazionale he described a sensation that I often feel when recently I witness an exceptional show or visit a new place or meet a person who fascinates me. The awareness of not being able to repeat that experience and the certainty of not being able to experience it like the first time.
“But above all, if the language in which I write disappears, the only language I know that uses the same word (heima and heimur) to indicate home and world disappears.”
by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
as published in Internazionale
Bucolic fairytales are a threat to life on Earth.
“Real solutions to our global food crises are neither beautiful nor comforting. […]
The answer is not more fields, which means destroying even more wild ecosystems. It is partly better, more compact, cruelty-free and pollution-free factories. Among the best options, horror of horrors, is a shift from farming multicellular organisms (plants and animals) to farming unicellular creatures (microbes), which allows us to do far more with far less.”
By George Monbiot
As published in Internazionale.
BEHIND THE SCENE
“Humans are not only made of words.”
Christina Rawls
Music changes my life everyday.
It helped me get through difficulties and helps me get to the truest part of me.
I worked for Internazionale to create two illustrations on this interesting article by professor Christina Rawls.
She writes on topics and cites authors that I have been interested in for many years.
Feeling free to interpretate Raws’ words, I wanted to pay homage to the great pianist Bill Evans.
Evans’ music accompanied my solitary walks and was the perfect comment and perfectly matched with my melancholy.
A small detail also here
