Old Laundry Theatre
Sunday 29 September
11.45am - 12.45pm

Comics have the ability to provoke and challenge their readers through their combination of words and pictures. Some creators have used this to reveal truths which are not always easy to digest and which have sometimes put them in danger. Freedom of speech remains at the heart of comic art and this year we feature two artists who are working on its frontline - Victoria Lomasko from Russia (now based in Berlin) and Mohammed Sabaaneh from Palestine, living in the West Bank.

Victoria and Mohammad will present examples of their work followed by a discussion that will explore the issues for freedom of speech raised by the imperatives that drive this work, and the contexts in which it takes place.

Victoria draws on Russian traditions of documentary graphic art to explore tensions in contemporary Russian society. Her book Other Russias made an extraordinary impact in the USA and the UK when translated into English. She is the co-curator of two long-term art and activism projects: Drawing the Court (with Zlata Ponirovska) and The Feminist Pencil (with Nadia Plungian).

Lomasko’s most recent novel, The Last Soviet Artist, finished three weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is a timely work anticipating the region’s seismic political changes that won the 2022 Free Voice award from PEN Catalan and Prix Couilles au Cul pour le Courage Artistique, Festival de BD d’Angoulême. 

Mohammed is a cartoonist and caricaturist, and active member of the International Cartoon Movement. He has won many awards worldwide and his work has been exhibited in many countries. In 2017, he was invited as a Palestinian influential intellectual young figure to represent the Palestinians at the United Nations in New York. 

Of his 2021 comic Power Born of Dreams: My Story is Palestine, Sarah Glidden, author of Rolling Blackouts, said: “Truly an astonishing work. The images move and come to life through the darkness. They demand that we look at them and that we do not turn away.”

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