The Remix Comix conference “Comics and Community”, took place on 5-7. October in and around the legendary Metelkova urban space in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Through talks, discussions, debates and workshops, participants explored the power of comics, its diverse forms and expressions with various researchers, curators and artists, and thought about the validity and meaning of comics in contemporary culture and society. With its visual narrative expressive power, comics can be an effective tool to address various social issues. How do comic narratives help in making sense of the world, understanding social phenomena and changes?  

Among others, there were talks by PAUL GRAVETT, the legendary British comics historian and generally an excellent connoisseur of world comics. The Belgian comics scholar ERWIN DEJASSE shared his thoughts on outsider’s art, punk comics and art brut. And, of course, we we were joined by a number of outstanding comics, such as the world-acclaimed Lebanese artist MAZEN KERBAJ, French animator and comics artist WINSHLUSS, author of the book Pinnochio, widely praised inside and outside of the comics world, and German comics artist MIKAEL ROSS,  author of the high-profile graphic novel The Thud, which takes its inspiration from the real life inclusive German village of Neuerkerode, a location largely populated and run by residents with developmental disabilities.

The conference took place in Ljubljana from 5-7 October, in the ZRC Atrium (Novi trg 2) and Kino Šiška (Trg prekomorskih brigad 3), and in Metelkova. During these days the attendants and participants mingled with the audiences of the Ljubljana TINTA-festival (4-8 October), which offers comic book fairs, presentations of current comic book releases, masterclasses and discussions with renowned local and foreign comic book authors. The full programme can be found here: www.stripburger.org // www.tinta.si

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Barbora Müllerova is the curator of the LUSTR illustration festival in Prague. Barbora studied graphic design and book art at the Faculty of Art and Design in Ústí nad Labem. She extended her education by studying at the Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle in Germany. She works with all kinds of techniques, but she mainly focuses on drawing, illustration and book design. She works as an illustrator and assistant professor in the Graphic Design 2 studio at the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem. She likes zines and wilderness, both in nature and in drawing.

Blaž Vurnik is a historian and curator for contemporary history and head of the museum department in the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His PhD thesis (University of Ljubljana, 2013) elaborated on the conflict relations in Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia from 1974 until 1990. His research includes both world wars, the disintegration of Yugoslavia and collapse of a socialist state. In 2014 he collaborated as a script writer with national broadcaster TV Slovenia in the production of the documentary Hidden Children of War. In 2015 he wrote his first script for a graphic novel, Memories and Dreams of Kristina B. (drawings Zoran Smiljanić). He continued his collaboration with Smiljanić as a script writer for graphic novels about the Slovenian writer Ivan Cankar (Ivan Cankar. Podobe iz življenja, 2018) and famous Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik (Plečnik., 2021).

Erwin Dejasse is art historian, scientific collaborator at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and lecturer at the University of Liège and at the High School of the Arts Saint-Luc – Brussels. In 2008, he has cofounded ACME, academic research group in comics. He has written some 50 articles on comics and Art Brut as well as the books Morris, Franquin, Peyo et le dessin animé [Morris, Franquin, Peyo and Animated Cartoon (with Philippe Capart, L’An 2, 2005) and La Musique silencieuse de Muñoz et Sampayo [The Silent Music of Muñoz and Sampayo](Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2023). He has curated the international exhibitions Muñoz / Breccia, l’Argentine en noir et blanc [Muñoz / Breccia, Argentina in black and white](Palais des Beaux-Arts – Charleroi, 2003), Alternative Chaos: Onafhankelijk beeldverhaal in Wallonië en Brussel [Alternative Chaos: Independent comics in Wallonia and Brussels](Stripdagen, Haarlem, 2008) and Art Brut et Bande dessinée [Art Brut and Comics] (Collection de l’Art Brut – Lausanne).

Guido van Hengel is a writer, historian and cultural coordinator. He received his PhD in cultural history from the University of Groningen. In 2018 he published a book on visionary and utopian thinkers during the First World War and the interwar period in Europe. This book, the Seers (in Dutch: Zieners), was translated into Serbian and Croatian in 2020, and published by Clio (Belgrade). In 2021 he published The Pack (in Dutch: Roedel), a collection of reportages about stray dogs and humans in former Yugoslavia.

Inkeri Aula is a cultural anthropologist who studies changing environmental relationships and shared sensory experiences across generations. Aula’s diverse research themes include environmental relationships, translocal communality, sensory relationships with the environment, forest myths, social imagination,  Afro-Brazilian culture, and multisensory ethnography. 

Katarina Šeme (1993) is an illustrator and 2D computer animator. In 2017, she graduated from ALUO in Ljubljana with a degree in visual communications. She worked as a graphic designer in Slovenia, Cyprus and Belgium. The scholarship allowed her to study traditional arts and culture in Indonesia for a year, which served as the inspiration for her first graphic novel, Sumatra – A Year on a Tropical Island. In addition to her comics work, Katarina Šeme works as an animator and graphic designer. She lives and works in Ljubljana.

Mazen Kerbaj (1975, Beirut, Lebanon) is an author of comics, painter and musician, he also illustrates and designs. He has written 15 books, which have been translated in over ten languages, and his work was exhibited in several galleries, museums, festivals and fairs all over the world. He previously taught at the American University in Beirut. Kerbaj is considered one of the key names of the Lebanese impro and experimental musical scene; as an excellent trumpeter, he constantly tests the limits of this instrument.

Mikael Ross (1984) is one of the most renowned contemporary German comics artists, whose works inspire readers and garner critical acclaim. His comics have been translated into many languages and have been published by the world’s biggest comic book publishers, receiving numerous awards.Together with the Belgian scriptwriter and illustrator Nicolas Wouters, he wrote and drew the graphic novel Les pieds dans le béton (2013), which is set in Berlin’s squatter scene of the Eighties. After extensive research in care institutions, he chronicled the story of Noel, a young man who lives with developmental disabilities, in his graphic novel The Thud (2018). He received the Max & Moritz Prize for “Best German-language Comic” for The Thud in 2020.

Paul Gravett. Co-founder of Escape magazine and Comica Festival, Paul Gravett is a London-based writer, curator, critic and lecturer specializing in international comics. His books include Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics (2004), Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life (2005), Great British Comics (2006), Incredibly Strange Comics (2008), Comics Art (2013), Mangasia: The Definitive Guide to Asian Comics (2017) and Posy Simmonds (2019). He also edited 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die (2011). He has curated retrospectives of Charles Schulz, Jack Kirby, Tove Jansson and Posy Simmonds and co-curated Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK for The British Library. In 2017, he curated Mangasia: Wonderlands of Asian Comics, which The Barbican Centre is touring worldwide. 

Philip Waechter. Internationally renowned German illustrator Philip Waechter (1968) has illustrated a series of popular children’s books read by children all over the world. Younger readers in Slovenia know him mainly from the picture books Sondays and Me, which has been reprinted eight times already. Waechter is also a member of the German art collective Labor Ateliergemeinschaft, with whom he co-created an instructive and witty book My Way, Your Way that shows how diversity enriches us and how boring life would be if we were all the same. Waechter is also the author of entertaining comics about the adorable, curious and inventive boy Toni, which have now been translated into Slovenian. 

Sanna Hukkanen is a comics artist and illustrator living in Joensuu, Finnish Karelia. She loves magical stories, ancient trees and mythological forests. Besides comics she has made illustrations to books, magazines, guidebooks and posters and her art work has traveled around in many exhibitions. She believes that art is a powerful tool for hope and change. She has worked in community art projects that use grassroots comics to give voice to minorities and activists in many countries.

Winshluss, whose real name is Vincent Paronnaud (1970), is an infamous French comics artist and animator who began his career deep underground and rose to the very top of the French comics pantheon without compromising his expression in any particular way.In 2007, Winshluss and Marjane Satrapi co-directed the film adaptation of one of the most influential comic books of all time, Persepolis, which is about the Satrapi’s upbringing in Iran. The animated feature film was a great success with both viewers and critics and received numerous awards, including the César Award for Best First Feature Film and the Special Jury Prize in Cannes. In the wider comics audience, Winshluss became famous with Pinnochio (Les Requins Marteaux, 2008), which also won the Best Album Award at the 2009 Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. The comic book, which has since been considered his magnum opus, is a cynical adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s classic. Through the transformation of the famous puppet into a war robot, it almost wordlessly guns down a whole host of social phenomena, from capitalism and the totalitarian state to religious fanaticism, all with humor and drawn in a plethora of diverse styles.