Umoristi a Marostica focuses on HOPE

The Marostica Graphic Group: “Humor as a critical gaze on reality
and hope as a principle of action”

“Hope” is the theme of the 52nd edition of Umoristi a Marostica. The renowned International Humor Graphic Contest invites artists worldwide to explore the meaning and visions behind a simple yet powerful word—one capable of expressing the deep essence of how we look at the world and at life.

In a time when global uncertainties, social changes, and individual fragilities often cloud the horizon, humor becomes a precious and necessary tool. And so does hope: the ability to imagine a better tomorrow, to piece fragments back together, to look at reality with a smile that does not deny difficulties but instead moves through them.

“In such a painful time as the one we are living in, marked by conflicts, suffering and injustices, we need to look beyond—to tomorrow—with a bit of optimism,” explains the Marostica Graphic Group in a statement. “Hope is not just a feeling that counters despair, but a commitment to act consciously, to not give up. It is an active principle that enables us to react and set our lives in motion again. For philosopher Ernst Bloch, the ‘principle of hope’ (the title of one of his most famous works) opens our gaze toward the future, generating an impulse to act, to move in order to transform existing reality, stimulating each person’s creative and design abilities. A principle capable of ‘illuminating our minds,’ as German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche describes with a vivid image: ‘Hope is the rainbow stretched over the rushing, tumultuous stream of life, swallowed hundreds of times by the foam and always recomposing itself anew: continuously surpassing it with delicate, beautiful daring, right where it roars the wildest and most dangerously.’”.