Hay Forum Sevilla 2024

Sudanese painter Rashid Diab reflects in his work the twists and turns of his tumultuous life, landscapes and people from his homeland, colors and sensations that bring us closer to his world. He also captures the disastrous effects of the wars and conflicts that ravage his country and have forced him to leave it and settle, for the second time, in Spain. The first time was for his studies; the second, out of necessity. He uses his painting as a catalyst against violence.

Rashid Diab was born in Wad-Medani, on the banks of the Blue Nile in Sudan, an environment that inspired his early works using rudimentary and improvised materials. He studied at the School of Fine Arts and Applied Arts in Khartoum, where he graduated in 1978 and received a scholarship to travel to Spain, where he earned a degree in painting and printmaking from the Complutense University of Madrid. In 1991, he obtained his PhD on traditional and contemporary art from Sudan, still the only one of its kind. Over the next 9 years, he taught at the same university. In the mid-1970s, his works began to be collected by national museums, libraries, and private collectors, and more recently, by the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute and the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF). In 1999, he moved back to Khartoum and in 2005 he opened the Rashid Diab Art Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to eradicating cultural illiteracy, offering courses for children, artist residencies, and exhibitions of Sudanese artists. The war that broke out in 2023 in Khartoum forced Diab to flee his home and return to Spain.

Diab will discuss his life and work with Sema D'Acosta, art critic, researcher and professor of Communication, Realization and Production. He is a member of the Consejo de Críticos de Artes Visuales de España, the IAC and the Asociación de Periodistas Culturales de Andalucía José María Bernáldez. He is also a regular contributor to El Cultural, the international magazine Arte-contexto and Diario de Sevilla. He is the author of several books on art such as The tip of the iceberg and Reflections on current art.

Event in Spanish. Welcome at 20.05

Thomas Schlesser teaches us that there are certain human wounds that cannot be healed. However, drawing on personal experiences, this French art historian and writer teaches us that art can bring us comfort in extreme situations, in such a way that it might help us take the first step towards the stages of overcoming them. Since 2014, Schlesser has been the director of the Hartun-Bergman Foundation (Antibes, France), whose main mission is to preserve the archives and objects of artists. He has just published his first novel, Lex Yeux de Mona (Mona's Eyes), after a string of essays on the history of art and aesthetics. He is also a lecturer at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. First through realism and now through fiction, He attests that an attentive look at any artistic expression is an apprenticeship to life, to its beauty, to know oneself, "to how big the small can be, to believe in miracles, to put the world on pause, that there is no weaker sex, to live the throes of death, to listen to your inner voice, to fight and persevere, that love is desire and desire is deprivation...’".

Schlesser will talk to Elena Garrigues, who works as a professor of Ethics at IE University. With deep cultural concerns, he began his career as a correspondent for several media outlets. She is a trustee in three foundations, inclusive entrepreneurship (Nantik Lum), human rights (Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Spain) and aid to children and adolescents (ANAR). Isabelle Berneron, book attaché at the French Institute, will present the event.

Event in French with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish