Paola Gaviria Silguero gave himself the dynamic stage name Powerpaola. But in Lucerne, the Ecuadorian author, who was born in 1977, seems completely withdrawn. On each day of the “Fumetto” comic festival, that is nine times, she sits for two hours in the lobby of the venerable Hotel Schweizerhof directly on Lake Lucerne and draws. “People around” is what she calls her project, and so she occasionally looks up from the sheet she has just been working on and fixes on the guests, who are unsuspectingly resting in the armchairs of the wide hall.
The hotel guests do not recognize each other
But Powerpaola’s pictures do not show the hotel lobby, but rather the illustrator, who is known for her unsparing view of herself and society, turns what is happening before her eyes into imaginary conversation scenes of a placeless high society. For the duration of the festival, the comic book author’s small retrospective, which is shown in table showcases in the lobby, will be continually expanded to include the live drawings. But the deception succeeds perfectly: no one portrayed seems to recognize themselves in it, and so everyday hotel life remains unaffected by the discreet artist guest.
For more than twenty years, “Fumetto” had always placed a prominent artist in the Schweizerhof; the hotel is one of the main sponsors of the comic festival founded in 1992, which is considered the most avant-garde in the world. This tradition had to be interrupted during the pandemic years, now it is being resumed with Powerpaola, and the fact that a draftsman is moving into the luxury hotel fits in with this year’s selection of artists, which has a clear predominance of women.
In the German-speaking world, this has not been unusual for comic events for a number of years, but “Fumetto” takes place on its fringes, which is why the festival has always seen itself as an international one, and worldwide men are still clearly in the majority among comic authors. But artists everywhere are the more daring at the moment.
Draws live: the comic author “Powerpaola”, Gaviria Silguero
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Bild: Comic
This is also shown by the traditional Lucerne competition, for which “Fumetto” had given the theme “Home” this time. With more than seven hundred entries in three age categories (children, young people and adults), participation was huge. As usual, Swiss participants triumphed in the first two categories, while the international participation was greater among the adults: the reputation of “Fumetto” radiates far beyond Switzerland, and first and second prize went to Belgians (Claire Pineau and Elise Denis) , Zoé Nagy from Hungary received the third. In the other categories, young Swiss women, Miyu Schiwy and Clara Höfler, were awarded the main prizes.
Lucerne becomes a comic world
After all, the cross-age scenario prize went to one man: Aurelio Todisco, also from Switzerland. He tells the story silently, i.e. wordlessly, but still uses speech bubbles in which he draws pictures that are like windows into the consciousness of his protagonist: a refugee who is about to be deported. The Finnish author Terhi Adler uses speech bubbles in a much more original way: she takes their name literally and designs them in her three-dimensional “spatial comics” as balloons floating above the papier-mâché figures, on which the dialogues are then written. One of them seems to float in a conversation without any connection, but below him you can take a seat in the story as a visitor.