Arequipa 2020

Forty years have passed since Julio Granda became a chess grandmaster. Throughout his career, this Arequipan has established himself as one of the most important chess players in Latin America, with numerous titles to his name, including four Pan American Championships and the senior world championship in 2017. Approaching his sixties, he has published Guía para ser un maestro de ajedrez, in which he shares his knowledge and offers advice for beginners and those looking to improve their skills. Along with Luis Carlos Arias Schreiber, sports journalist and editor of the book, and Felipe Ortiz de Zevallos, he will discuss his love for chess, his career and the importance of passing this passion on to new generations.

In the first half of the 20th century, Arequipa helped shape some of Peru's most memorable images. Today, new generations of photographers, curators and thinkers are once again asking what it means to look at a country in transformation. Photographer Ros Postigo and visual artist Raúl Chuquimia will speak to curator Carlos Caamaño about photography as a tool for creating memory and understanding territory, identity and diversity, and something more essential: photography can teach us to see the country better, and Arequipa, with its history and artistic vitality, can become a space for reflecting on contemporary photography in Peru.

La Carpa Librera book tent is a welcoming space for reading and listening to stories, where children, young people and adults can explore books and discover all that they have to offer. This is a place where the pages come to life. For this experience, we will be joined by the reading facilitator Elena de Yta.

¿Dónde están los cuentos? is a play that invites children and adults alike to embark on a magical adventure to rescue beloved storybook characters, because every time a book is opened, magic springs from its pages. Behind every page, behind every scene, an adventure full of humour, music, imagination and audience participation awaits. Children and adults alike will become storytellers to bring the magic back to books.

The evolution of photography over its two-hundred-year history has transformed our relationship with images. Since 1875, Arequipa has been a major hub of photographic activity, radiating influence across the entire region. Mauricio Ambrossio, Claudia Delgado and Jorge Villacorta will discuss how shifts in usage and technology have shaped the work and creative output of photographers from Arequipa.

In a system that glorifies individualism and the cult of the self, it is hardly surprising that bad manners and rudeness are gaining ground across the social spectrum. One need only observe the outbursts of those who govern us or read the thousands of messages flooding social media. The sociologist and philosopher Renata Salecl (Slovenia) observes how neoliberalism has colonised our emotions, our decisions, and even our forms of empathy. She sets this out in Maleducados, where she also offers an alternative: kindness. Not as naive behaviour, but as a form of resistance. If the system wants competition, let us respond with coexistence.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available