CITYTELLING FESTIVAL RETURNS!

CITYTELLING FESTIVAL 2021: at home

Since the beginning of 2020, our lives have abruptly changed. Life remained at HOME. Therefore, this year CityTelling Festival invites you to talk about homes that hold the whole world. To talk about homes where the History is born.

HOME AND THE WORLD
Although we have survived the pandemic being alone, within the walls of our homes, this experience has become, as never before in history, a shared experience for all of humanity. We were experiencing the pandemic together with the whole world on social networks. Everyday testimonials on Facebook, Instagram stories, poems, songs, and memes that flooded social networks have become our shared diary. In that virtual reality, we were looking for answers to the anxiousness of the world. We were looking for comfort, reassurance, answers to existential questions, or just confirmation that we are not alone spending days in our pajamas or with our unwashed hair. At home.

WE AND THE WORLD
Social networks allowed us to observe each other’s lives between the four walls as if through a keyhole. The anxiety, boredom, fatigue – we survived these common feelings in a digital reality. Together with virtual friends, we have tried new recipes, discussed the first vaccinations, the newly started yoga or language classes. We were united by newly discovered hobbies, shared recipes, or pandemic fashion news. In these invisible communities, we were looking for what we were lacking most: live communication. These communities made us feel being part of a group and made us feel that WE ARE NOT ALONE.

STORIES: LIFE "BEFORE"
And yet, this diary of everyday life testified to one thing: our lives were permeated by Nostalgia. In this pandemic universe, memories and history took on new meaning. Memories of "normal" life, impressions of past travels, or photographs of PRE-quarantine life have become anchors of hope and helped us not to drown in the sea of anxiety. History BEFORE has become the island of our dreams, the romanticized world of the past, untouched by the shackles of the new reality.

Photograph by Martynas Plepys