Comicdom2014 dg all lores by antonia chouv

Art

Celebrating 9

th Comicdom Con Athens 2014

algerie argentina belarus brazil cambodia china holland/spain hungary india ireland israel italy k malta norway peru poland portugal romania serbia

ÂŠ Cover illustration by Chea Sereyroth

croatia cyprus estonia finland germany greece kenya korea latvia latvia-italy lebanon lithuania a sweden switzerland tunis turkey uk uruguay usa Celebrating 9th Art When someone refers to comics, immediately the majority of people think of USA, Japan, France, Belgium, or Italy. Not many of them are aware of the rich and interesting comics scenes of Hungary, Israel, Uruguay, Turkey, Tunis, or Algeria. Comics welcome anyone to their world; a world as close to each of us, as a pen and a paper, says Scott McCloud, and so we welcome you to travel the globe through panels and balloons, fictional and realistic stories, mysterious and more down-to-earth characters. This exhibition aims to showcase comics from all over the world, highlighting the variety of artistic styles, storytelling techniques, concepts, and interpretation approaches that could be applied to the Medium. More than 30 countries and over 80 artists celebrate with us the diversity of 9th Art. A diversity that, strangely, appears through common elements. Looking through the pages exhibited, we can understand that people would always want to share their stories, and pictures are the best medium to do it. We deliberately didn’t translate most of the works, as we wanted to make a social experiment and prove the powerful and effective language of comics. It doesn’t matter where the artists come from and what language they use. As long as they share their stories using pictures, we will understand them. We challenge all visitors to participate in our experiment! We carefully chose the participating countries, as our main goal was to present comics scenes that are not very popular or well known around the world. We also tried to spotlight both classical and more contemporary artists, sketching a multicultural puzzle. The research for the exhibition was also a great way not only to discover hidden diamonds, but also to begin a creative dialogue about comics between international festivals, organizations and, of course, artists. We hope that our exhibition will be a first step for a global network that will facilitate collaboration and mobility of ideas and people. “The imagination is a muscle. If it is not exercised, it atrophies”, Neil Gaiman said once. This exhibition provides us with tons of exercise. Enjoy! Lida Tsene Art Director Comicdom Con Athens 2014

algerie argentina belarus brazil cambodia china holland/spain hungary india ireland israel italy k malta norway peru poland portugal romania serbia

Benali Amel Kazitani Reda Dalia Si Ahmed Mahmud Abdoun Nawel Louerrad Chafik Rouag Aladin Abou Taleb Said Sabaou Mohamed Kechida Besma Chayani Amine Benali Ilies Bensaade Kerim Fetoum Sofiane Belaskri Faiza Benaouda Mahmoud Benameur Soumeya & Safia Ouaezki Sofiane Belaskri Nechwa Djeghri Nassim Boutagrabet L’Andalou Bouchra Belhadji Bouchra Benmeziane Slim Sid Ali Melouah Ahmed Haroun Le Hic Gyps Hiahemzizou Redouane Assari Ali Mouay Abbas Kebir Benyoucef Special thanks to Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d’Alger and to Dalila Nadjem 4

croatia cyprus estonia finland germany greece kenya korea latvia latvia-italy lebanon lithuania a sweden switzerland tunis turkey uk uruguay usa