BABA JAGA FEST 2024
November 22 • 23 • 24
Stories and drawings from Eastern Europe
ROME | OSTIENSE
Follow Baba Jaga through the paths of stories and drawings from one end of Europe to the other and beyond.
Participating in Baba Jaga Fest 2024 are artists from Albania, Czechia, Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, Ukraine and the UK.
9
Countries
8
Exhibitions
21
Artists
9
Location
Baba Jaga Fest brings together writers, illustrators, comic book creators, and a large community that shares the same commitment and passion for creating, sharing, and circulating stories.
A TRAVELING HOUSE
The festival is inspired by the house of Baba Jaga: an animated house that, moving on its long chicken legs, challenges the very concept of borders.
WHO IS BABA JAGA?
Baba Jaga is a mysterious figure that has populated Slavic legends for centuries. Behind the old witch, now cruel, now benevolent, lies the goddess of the forests, a constant presence in fairy tales and folklore throughout Eastern Europe.
From his enigmatic home, which moves on giant chicken feet, she invites us to travel between East and West, to explore a largely unknown landscape of stories and images.
WHY LOOK EAST
The common idea of Eastern Europe is a simplification dictated by practicality, a label that is useful in rejecting the idea that reality is complex, elusive, and unclassifiable. The reasons for Baba Jaga Fest’s interest in this Europe “east of the Adriatic” do not inhabit classifications or juxtapositions, but are motivated by an interest in such complexities. The festival acts with sinusoidal gait to blur boundaries and explore permeability, uniqueness, and diversity.
Baba Jaga Fest involves the entire creative district of Ostiense, from Ponte di Ferro to Ponte Spizzichino, from Gazometro to Mercati Generali.
Campuses, galleries, community hubs, academies, and streets will be the site of a diffuse festival where everything is a short distance away.
Baba Jaga Fest involves the entire creative district of Ostiense, from Ponte di Ferro to Ponte Spizzichino, from Gazometro to Mercati Generali.
Campuses, galleries, community hubs, academies, and streets will be the site of a diffuse festival where everything is a short distance away.
BABA JAGA EUROPE
Baba Jaga goes to Europe.
The 2024 edition of Baba Jaga Fest is being held as part of Baba Jaga Europe, a European project coordinated by River Industries and supported by the European Union’s Creative Europe program, in which River Industries in Rome, Frame Festival in Prague, publisher kuš! in Riga and the Pictoric collective in Kyiv are collaborating on events and artistic residencies in different countries.