FIK ― Illustration and Comic Arts Festival

The third annual festival of contemporary illustration and comic arts “FIK” will take place at several spots in the town of Usti nad Labem from 16. 11. to 18. 11. 2018. The main events will take place in the Hraničář Art Gallery that will host exhibitions, discussions, workshops, presentations, concerts, parties, and market stalls. The festival will be attended by the most interesting illustrators and comic artists, the most talented students as well as significant German artists.

This year’s FIK focuses on psychomagic. Psychomagic can refer to magic thinking and searching for links between presumably unrelated events or, for example, between an artists and their work. When deploying imagination, arts and creative contact with our unconscious, new questions arise. Our greatest inspiration is Alejandro Jodorowsky, the comics world legend, and his surrealist movement, though. Even today, Jodorowsky’s acts and fantasies positively influence other people’s lives, helping them with finding their own way. His approach is therefore a great addition to our Mental and Digital Hygiene exhibition that will take place in the Hraničář Gallery at the same time.

Unlike in the previous years, we want to liven up the surroundings of the Gallery as well. We would like to breathe new life and sense into the unused shop windows for a while. The space outside the Gallery will also be illuminated with video-mapping to accentuate the psychomagical atmosphere of the festival. We have prepared events for both experienced and emerging artists as well as for those who just want to have a peek inside the professional artists’ dens. There will be several comic artists and theorists participating in the festival who will give advice and show the whole creative process to everybody interested in this increasingly popular medium. If you want come with your kids, we would especially like to point out the Saturday morning programme to you.