The international reggae festival Rototom Sunsplash in Benicàssim, through its Cultural Association Exodus, launches ‘Dialogues without borders‘. A cycle of debates and collective reflection that will export the cultural machinery of the festival to different cities of the Valencian Community and throughout the year with the challenge of “deseasonalizing culture” and “weaving new alliances with the public”, according to Exodus.

“We want to project the values and the cultural engine that has accompanied Rototom since its inception, and that imprints idiosyncrasy as a festival, beyond the concert venue; ‘Dialogues without borders’ is a journey through the territory that each month will stop in a different city and a different stage, to continue adding and reaching more people,” explain the same sources.

This series of meetings, with free admission, implies a “restructuring” and “reinvention” for the veteran festival, which transforms its emblematic Social Forum in an agora without temporal and spatial limits, while preserving its essence as a rigorous, professional and avant-garde tribune in which the plurality of approaches, the emphasis on nuances and values built on mutual respect, peace, social justice, diversity and intercultural tolerance, continue to shape its leitmotiv.

Thus, the dynamics that nurture the programming of this new stage of the Social Forum aim to strengthen its profile as a creator of ideas and talent management to stimulate change in a world full of challenges, contradictions and injustices.

With monthly periodicity, the cycle will travel, wrapped by careful and integrated scenarios in the narrative, through different parts of the Valencian Community. It will do so in thematic blocks closely linked to the month chosen for its staging, with the goal of bringing to the table current issues of general interest that impact the daily life of the population and that mark the drift of the planet.

The religions and peace binomial; democracy; equality in today’s society; migrations; Mediterraneanness; sustainable development objectives; the climate crisis; the power of culture as a transforming element; the artificial intelligence revolution or happiness as a right are some of the fields to be explored and shared in the cycle. A sum of expert voices, diversity of views, polyphonic contributions and team interaction that will culminate during the week of the festival -from August 16 to 21, 2024 in Benicàssim- with a new format that will be unveiled shortly by the organization.

Dialogues without borders’ will start shooting next Tuesday, December 4 (19.30 pm) at the Llotja del Cànem in Castelló.as a prelude to the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which will be commemorated on December 10 of this year, at a “critical moment for its defense and an unfortunate coincidence, with Palestine on the immediate horizon,” according to Exodus.

The first of the dialogues in the series will focus on human rights as a backdrop, ‘75 years of the Universal Declaration? of Human Rights’ which will be led by Jorge Cardona, Professor of International Public Law at the University of Valencia, current president of UNICEF in the Valencian Community and Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universitat Jaume I of Castelló. This inaugural debate will also feature the Vice Chancellor of Culture of the UJI, Carmen Lázaro, and will be completed with a discussion with the public.