As the days fade, Fireflies Conversations light up the evenings. This series of six free talks weaves together moments of poetry, music, and reflection each evening of this year’s Free School.

To open the conversations, Elias Sanbar and Mayya Sanbar explore Palestinian poetry as a form of resisting erasure. The extraordinary Ònfalo project follows with a scientific lecture that becomes an experimental music concert, immersing us in sounds produced by the insects of Brussels. In the third instalment, Georges Didi-Huberman delivers a talk on Pasolini and fireflies. Next comes the collective Archivo de la Memoria Trans delving deeper into the use of archives as a tool of resistance. On the fifth evening, artist and philosopher Elizabeth Povinelli presents a poetic lecture-performance on the disappearance of stars, followed by a conversation with philosopher Federico Campagna. The series comes to a close with Lia Rodrigues and Selvagem speaking about the interconnected knowledge of nature and the body. The Fireflies Conversations take us on a journey through a constellation of minor lights that shine against the singular glare of the present.

Elias Sanbar & Mayya Sanbar

25.05, 18:00—19:30 | French

Elias Sanbar (°1947, Haifa) is one of the most distinguished contemporary Arab writers and historians, translator of the work of Mahmoud Darwish and also the Palestinian ambassador to UNESCO. He was co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Revue d'études palestiniennes, one of the most respected publications about Palestine. Together with actress Mayya Sanbar, who is also his daughter, he will recite a series of poems and discuss poetry and the situation in Palestine. After last year's moving poetry reading at Maison poème, the festival is delighted to welcome them again.

Ònfalo concert-conference

26.05, 18:00—19:30 | English

Musicians Enrico Malatesta and Attila Faravelli, together with researcher Juan José López Díez, delve into the way insects communicate with each other by making leaves vibrate. They accompany groups on walks through green spaces in the city and use laser vibrometers to record these barely perceptible sounds. Halfway between a conference and a concert, they present a montage of sound recordings and scientific insights, a surprising form inviting the audience to enter the invisible life surrounding us.

Georges Didi-Huberman

27.05, 18:00—19:30 | French | Moderated by Natacha Pfeiffer

In 2009, French art historian and philosopher Georges Didi-Huberman wrote La survivance des lucioles. Pasolini thought at the end of his life that the fireflies had disappeared, but according to Didi-Huberman, they live on despite everything: in the face of power, hope and resistance still exist. Through his readings of Dante, Pasolini, Walter Benjamin, and others, he tries to understand these fragile lights and lets the fireflies light up in current examples of resistance. Their luminous presence contrasts with the artificial brilliance that once surrounded dictators and today radiates from every screen. A humble yet much needed signal of hope.

Archivo de la Memoria Trans & Jack Halberstam

28.05, 18:00—19:30 | Spanish, English 

One of the outstanding figures in gender and queer theory studies, Jack Halberstam, published several books among which Trans* A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability, and The Queer Art of Failure. He will be in dialogue with Archivo de la Memoria Trans, a collective dedicated to preserving and honouring the stories of trans communities by creating an alternative archive, a powerful counter-narrative against invisibility and stigmatisation. Together, they will question the assumed authority of traditional archives and reflect on how archives also function as mechanisms of power, and the ways in which they can be reclaimed for radical reimagination and resistance to disappearance. 

We regret to announce that Paul B. Preciado will not be able to participate in the conference on May 28th with Archivo de la Memoria Trans, contrary to what was announced in our brochure. We apologize for this change.

Elizabeth Povinelli & Federico Campagna

29.05, 18:00—19:30 | English 

In this lecture performance, conceived for the Free School, Elizabeth Povinelli focuses on the progressive disappearance of stars due to light pollution, and the loss of a magical relationship with the celestial vault. She engages in conversation with Federico Campagna, whose books Prophetic Culture and Technic and Magic offer a radical rethinking of reality in the face of modern decline. Together, they shed new light on how we perceive and experience the cosmos in an era of disappearance.

Selvagem & Lia Rodrigues

30.05, 18:00—19:30 | French, Portuguese

How do movement and knowledge intersect? Selvagem is an initiative that interweaves Indigenous cosmologies and artistic practices, and emphasises interconnectedness and the vitality of nature. Lia Rodrigues is a choreographer known for her political and poetic work in which dance becomes embodiment of resistance, often in collaboration with marginalised communities in Brazil. They engage in a conversation about how both a body and a forest hold memory, history and the potential for transformation. An exchange in which education, embodiment, and artistic practice are reconsidered as tools for radical transformation.