The French Institute sits the ambassadors on the couch | Culture
Europe, its DNA and its cultural diversity will be the protagonists of the new cultural season of the French Institute. which will be held in Madrid and other Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Seville, Zaragoza or Bilbao. This Thursday, in The night of ideas: Europe versus the present, which will include pieces of microtheatre and an exhibition dedicated to urban art, will take place at the headquarters of Madrid (between 19 and 21) a peculiar debate: the ambassadors on the couch.
"In this first session of 'diplomatic and political psychoanalysis', four European ambassadors (in Spain) will recline on the couch to take turns shredding the ins and outs of their trade, their personal experiences and anecdotes as diplomats and their vision of the future of Europe ", explains the note of the institute. Participate Sile Maguire, ambassador of Ireland; Wolfgang Dold, ambassador of Germany; Marzenna Adamczy, ambassador of Poland; Francisco Fonseca Morillo, director of the Representation of the European Commission in Madrid; and Yves Saint-Geours, ambassador of France. The moderator will be Joseba Elola, a journalist from EL PAÍS.
Then (from 22.15 to 23.45), there will be a debate on new cultural experiences and the democratization of access to culture. José María Lasalle, Secretary of State for Culture of the Spanish Ministry from 2011 to 2016; Amelie Deuflhard, director of the Kampnagel Performing Arts Center (Hamburg); Steven Hearn, founder and director of Scintillo, a cultural structure that pools competencies and media from several French cultural centers; and Christina Rosenvinge: Spanish singer-songwriter of Danish origin, awarded with the National Prize of Current Music in 2018. Moderated by Jacinta Cremades, journalist at El Cultural de The world
Yves Saint-Geours, the French ambassador, spoke on Wednesday, in the presentation of the activities, the choice of the European theme: "I do not think it is necessary to justify our choice, we all, here, carry and embody the European project. we must intensify efforts to explain and defend it to our citizens. "
The event was attended by the "godfathers" of the Institute's season, former President Felipe González and actress Beatriz Luengo. In González's opinion, European culture is "a culture of identity of identities" and defined the term as a concept that "encompasses much more than we understand by the word itself, ranging from the creativity of Beatriz (Luengo) to that of the painters, it is a great concept with many challenges ". For Luengo, Europe "breathes quality and being European is 'distinction' anywhere in the world."
