Biennale Democrazia is a cultural event promoted by the City of Turin and realised by the Fondazione per la Cultura Torino. The aim of the initiative is to spread a culture of democracy that can be translated into democratic practice.
Biennale Democrazia is a permanent workshop of ideas open to all, with a special focus on high school and university students. The project is divided into a series of preparatory and intermediate stages – from meetings in schools to thematic discussion workshops – culminating, every two years, in five days of public appointments: lectures, debates, readings, forums, in-depth seminars and various moments of active involvement of citizenship. All this with the presence of the most authoritative protagonists of national and international culture, and with the collaboration of over 70 institutions, organisations and associations, which make possible a rich circulation of ideas, suggestions and proposals.
Biennale Democrazia is also art, cinema and theatre. Partnerships with the city’s cultural bodies make it possible to realise initiatives that use the languages of creativity and entertainment, under the banner of transversality and the mixing of expressive modes. Alongside lectures, debates and meetings, the Biennale Democrazia calendar therefore hosts themed film festivals, exhibition itineraries, concerts and moments of city animation, theatre shows, performances and forays into unusual and unexpected spaces.
8th edition: Boundaries of FREEDOM
As announced at the press conference on 7 June, the Biennale Democrazia is returning to the period that has seen it play a leading role from the very beginning: from Wednesday 22 to Sunday 26 March 2023, Turin will host the eighth edition of one of the most eagerly awaited events in the city’s cultural calendar, with a particularly significant title: AT THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM.
At the centre of attention will be freedom, an indispensable reference point for any discourse on democracy and, at the same time, a word that is contested by even very different sides and cultural traditions, to the point of becoming a flag, continually redefined, of the most diverse political actors. Hence the need to talk about it again, with the aim of grasping its nuances, understanding its contradictions, discussing its limits and possible new advances. In continuity with the previous years, the 2023 edition will find space throughout the city, thanks to the active and proactive involvement of the realities that animate it, which will be solicited to put forward opportunities for meetings, activities and reflections on the themes on which it will be articulated: Free all!, Conflicts of freedom, Freedom as a format, Imagining freedom.
With this in mind, the collaboration with the Turin Chamber of Commerce is renewed, which, through its partnership with the Turin Social Impact platform – the ecosystem for social impact entrepreneurship – will make it possible to reflect on urban regeneration practices as a meeting point between active participation and economic and social development.