Orhan Pamuk among the guests of Torino Spirituality

In the confrontation of consciences, the intersection of faiths, cultures and religions, Torino Spirituality returns to trigger a reflection on the meaning of our time and of our being. The center of gravity of the 18th edition, scheduled from 29 September to 2 October in meeting and worship places, museums, culture and entertainment spaces of the Piedmontese capital, is the skin, the extreme frontier between us and the world, a surface where the life meets us.

Starting from the skin, an index of who we are and where we end up, threshold and place of contact with others and with reality, think writers, philosophers, protagonists of the arts and contemporary thought. A special appointment is the meeting with Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize for Literature, who in conversation with Elena Loewenthal, director of the Circolo dei conti of Mingher the plague spreads, slipping beyond the skin to poison consciences. Getting out of one’s own skin to give physicality and impulses to that of other human beings is the actor’s job; is the point from which Fabrizio Gifuni will start in Cambiare Pelle. The art of the actor, in conversation with Maria Paola Pierini, professor at the Dams in Turin and film historian. Children ≠ parents is a comparison on when parents and children do not recognize each other in each other’s faces, but more in intimacy: a conversation about society and its stereotypes between children and parents of mixed couples, foster or adoptive parents with Luciana Littizzetto, the singer-songwriter Niccolò Agliardi, the writer Sabrina Efionayi, the journalist Elena Goretti, hosted by the radio speaker Matteo Caccia and the dancer and performer Lidia Carew, in collaboration with Associazione Lidia Dice. The linguist Federico Faloppa also speaks of stereotypes and social imaginary, in the lesson Whitening an Ethiopian and the writer Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, who in the dialogue Always and only good people? he confronts the historian Francesco Filippi on our colonial memory. Vittorio Sgarbi talks about how the epidermis has been represented in the history of art in a lectio magistralis, but Oliviero Toscani also thinks about visual arts, a photographer who has forever changed the advertising imagery, drawing the cardinal points of a photographic Atlas of human race, together with Luca Beatrice. The theologian and priest Luigi Maria Epicoco reflects on the relationship between skin and interiority in the lesson The skin of the soul, while in the intervention A caress on the world the ethologist Roberto Marchesini explores the tactile dimension of care by comparing humans and animals. Cecilia Strada and former magistrate and essayist Gherardo Colombo discuss the lives spent taking care of the skin of others and the experience of the rescue ship ResQ People, in dialogue with the curator of Turin Spirituality Armando Buonaiuto, in collaboration with the Festival of Migrations. What it means to enter into the skin of others to tell it is the beginning of the reflection of the Dutch writer and reporter Frank Westerman, in dialogue with the anthropologist Marco Aime. Neuroscientist Giorgio Vallortigara, on the other hand, answers the question Why can’t we tickle ourselves? in the lesson dedicated to investigating the boundaries of the self, while the writers Vincenzo Latronico and Irene Graziosi, the content creator Petunia Ollister and the essayist Elisa Cuter talk about social networks and their effects on the perception of our bodies.





These and numerous other events enrich the Torino Spirituality program, which opens with the conversation between the former world champion footballer and activist against racism Lilian Thuram and the missionary priest Alex Zanotelli in the Church of San Filippo Neri, on the evening of Thursday 29 September, moderated by the journalist Annalisa Camilli. Together with them, many characters and thinkers animate the 18th edition: the botanist Stefano Mancuso, the psychoanalyst Massimo Recalcati, the writer Paolo Nori, the theologian Vito Mancuso and the artist and theatrical actor Alessandro Bergonzoni, the writers Nicola Lagioia, Valeria Parrella, Giuseppe Culicchia, the Pulitzer Prize winner Joshua Cohen, the historian Carlo Greppi, the artist Fabio Viale, the philosopher Maurizio Ferraris, the writer and traveler Jan Brokken, the priests and writers Pablo d’Ors and Paolo Scquizzato, the Latinist Nicola Gardini, the philosophers Maura Gancitano and Andrea Colamedici, dermatologists Alessandro Martella and Federica Osti, the monk Enzo Bianchi, who discusses the links between body and spirituality with the founder of Turin Spirituality Antonella Parigi, the Hindu nun Svamini Hamsananda Giri and the Zen nun Elena Seishin Viviani and their evolution in these 18 years of festival.




The festival has an itinerant preview in the weekend preceding the event in the city: after the summer events, the spiritual walks of Turin Spirituality return with La natura on tiptoe, two itineraries for walking lightly on the surface of the earth. Saturday 24 September the priest and writer Paolo Scquizzato and the readings by Daniela Falconi accompany Walking is joy. Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh, an itinerary immersed in the biodiversity of the Fondotoce Nature Reserve, in collaboration with the LetterAltura festival in Verbania. On Sunday 25 September the same Paolo Scquizzato and Daniela Falconi, this time in Ostana (Cuneo) and in collaboration with Viso a Viso Cooperativa di Comunità, lead Women for the Earth. How the feminine listens to the environment: listening to the words and texts of some women who have spent themselves for the protection of the environment, a walk through paths and villages to get closer to the wounded mother who hosts and nourishes us.




Orhan Pamuk among the guests of Torino Spirituality – Piedmontese newspaper