Literaturtage Lana

2023: Ungeheuer ist viel. Doch nichts ungeheurer als der Mensch.

The edition of Literaturtage Lana 2023 still revolves around the topic of war, which despite a year having passed, continues to inflict destruction and suffering without prospects of an imminent end, in Ukraine, on the doorstep of Europe, as well as elsewhere. Drawing on Greek tragedy, specifically Sophocles and his famous phrase Ungeheuer ist viel. Doch nichts ungeheurer als der Mensch (Much is monstrous. But nothing is more monstrous than man), Literaturtage Lana 2023 once again explores the chaos and inexpressibility of war and uses literature as a tool for investigating human atrocities.

For the 38th edition of the Literaturtage Lana, the graphics conceived the use of two colors in contrast: a dark color that reminds the drama of war combined with a vibrant and bright color that suggests hope and guidance. The simple and large-format typography highlights the power of Sophocles’ quote. Additionally, in 2023, the festival opened with Swetlana Alexijewitsch, Nobel Prize winner for Literature in 2015, for whom a specific manifesto was created for the event.

2022: Krieg und Frieden (War and peace)

When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, the war that had become unimaginable after decades of peace returned to Europe. Therefore this edition the topic of the literature days in Lana is the following question; how to talk about war? An unbridgeable gulf separates us from the experience of war, but recognition of this gulf is a condition of bridging it. And thus, the name for this Literaturtage Lana is Krieg und Frieden (War and peace) taken from the famous literary work by the Russian author Lev Tolstoy.

The graphic design of the theme of the 37th Lana Literary Festival revolves around the tension between two colours which are a representation of the two key words war (represented in the colour black) and peace (represented in the colour green). The gradient creates a tension between the two colours, one slowly taking over the other. Including the text.

2021: Gedächnissprünge (Memory jumps)

The theme of the 36th Lana Literary Festival revolves around the idea of memory leaps. Memory does not always arise in a controlled way, but in part erratically and associatively. Memory is full of gaps, and fishes out the individual from an indeterminate whole of what has been forgotten. Unlike the lifeless data memories of the digital world, which know no loss and deny memory, memory is interrupted and scattered.

A simple graphic element represents this jumping movement and indeterminacy: A dot, blurred, and moving from side to side. Memory jumps are not linear. So the text is not set linearly either, but traces the movement of a jump.

Designed by Lupo Burtscher. You can find all the projects that were created in collaboration within the framework of the Lana Literature Days in the Lupo Burtscher Archive.