A happy island in which to imagine a world without war, economic crises, inflation, social and political tensions, in which the pandemic is only a bad and distant memory. A world where smiles are every day. These are the collective hopes and desires that Carnival artists interpret and fix on their sketches. Ideas, reflections, thoughts now on paper, and that in February will parade on the sea-front boulevards in Viareggio, Tuscany, in the form of large papier-mâché works. On the floats and among the masks that will participate in Carnival 2023, there is a great desire to have fun, joke, and ironize despite a world that seems to be falling apart. The image of an upside-down world is typical of the Carnival, which reflects on a world that seems to be really upside down. It will be a special edition scheduled from February 4 to 25, because it will be the 150th year of the Carnival of Viareggio. The tradition of the Carnival of Viareggio, born from a parade of floats decorated along the Via Regia on the day of Mardi Gras of 1873, at a distance of a century and a half is the living testimony of an art in which humbug, satire, allegory and desire for escape find form in the creativity of the masters of papier-mâché. The constructions of next February are an ideal invitation to a great collective rite, to exorcize a difficult and heavy contemporaneity.
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