La Jiribilla magazine opens a space for debate to celebrate its 22nd anniversary
As part of its 22nd anniversary celebrations, the cultural magazine La Jiribilla opened the Sentipensar space for debate, dedicated to the challenges of culture after the Covid-19 pandemic and the role of publications in the current Cuban scenario.
The meeting was attended by several collaborators of the prestigious publication, including intellectuals Laidi Fernández de Juan, Marilyn Garbey, Víctor Fowler, Norberto Codina and Rafael Acosta de Arriba, as well as journalist, poet and cultural promoter Alexis Triana; poet, essayist and professor Juan Nicolás Padrón; and audiovisual producer, screenwriter and critic Guille Vilar.
References to the search for alternatives in the digital scenario and the challenges of digital magazines in Cuba were some of the topics of the discussion held in the main hall of the Casa del Alba Cultural in Havana.
The essayist and writer Victor Fowler, José Antonio Fernández de Castro Cultural Journalism Award 2023, referred to the role of magazines and the necessary role as cultural leaders of their time, explaining the need to understand and use the possibilities of digital media in its different aspects.
He also commented on the weaknesses of these publications, mentioning the limited capacity for reflection and the disconnection with other regions, themes and actors of global culture.
For her part, the storyteller Laidi Fernandez highlighted the imprint of the Casa de las Americas magazine, the need for debate, controversy, and the promotion of entertainment and humor as a means of physical and spiritual survival. The storyteller also described the history of La Jiribilla as a space of creative freedom.
For his part, the intellectual Dr. Rafael Acosta de Arriba reflected on the importance of the Internet during the pandemic and called for a broader, more tolerant and permissive editorial policy that generates a diversity of topics and is not alien to the assumptions of critical thinking. And he pointed out: «If our magazines do not aspire to a great plurality, I believe that they are reducing themselves.»
The playwright Marilyn Garbey discussed the possibilities of dissemination, sharing her experiences during the pandemic and pointing out the possibility of stimulating different versions and points of view on the same phenomenon.
Meanwhile, the poet and editor Norberto Codina, National Publishing Award 2021, referred to the importance of covering all spaces and promoting important magazines in digital support: «To make cultural policies, you have to make investments, move resources in the circumstances we have today,» he explained.
The celebration of the magazine’s 22nd anniversary was accompanied by the reading of the illustrated poetry book Lo que nos rebasa and a concert by Santa Clara singer Yaíma Orozco in Havana’s El Patio de Baldovina.
Translated by Luis E. Amador Dominguez
