NOTE: The schedule is subject to change. Participants will be notified in advance.
SATURDAY, 21 MARCH
Registration & Welcome Coffee
KEYNOTES
Hope, Dignity and Reconciliation in Times of Crisis
Can an unjust state bring reconciliation? Through what mechanisms can moral ideals provide political orientation? Where do we find hope in the contemporary world? Lea addresses these questions by taking readers on a journey into her new book: the imagining of the life of a woman, Leman Ypi, who was born in Salonica, Greece, a few years before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and died in Tirana, Albania, just over a decade after the collapse of communism. She reads a few pages from the book and explores the role of art and the imagination in times of crisis.
Re(Thinking) As an Act of Hope
When your country, your family and friends, your cities, and your land are under attack, the instinct is to hide, to freeze, or to fight back. Nuanced thinking is not the first thing that comes to mind. Neither is launching an online journal of culture and ideas. Nevertheless, here we are, and the name – re/visions – speaks for itself. The thinking behind this desperate act of hope will be the topic of Daria's talk.
BREAK
KEYNOTES
Gloria Dickie in conversation with Anca Iosif
Writing the Wild
The climate story is often told as a warning. In this conversation, Gloria will discuss what it might look like as a call to care and build. Starting from her work on the book Eight Bears, she will share what our relationship with these majestic species reveals about our place in the world, and how stories about a planet in crisis can still hold room for hope.
LUNCH BREAK & BOOK SIGNINGS
KEYNOTES
Hope Is a Group Project
When the present feels uncertain, a journalist turns to history for something steadier: stories of hope that shaped him and the communities that raised him. Drawing on Pan-African and anti-colonial movements, this talk explores how people built solidarity across borders – through relationships, storytelling, and the work of coordination. Hope isn't something we just feel. It's something we build together.
The Sky Contains the Plans
Over five years and thirteen rounds of IVF, the promise of a child slowly turns into sperm samples, pregnancy tests, and probability calculations. In the fertility clinic waiting room, belief in outcomes fades, but the process does not. Adam examines the stories we tell ourselves, the moments where hope becomes habit, and why we carry on when science gives us no reason to do so.
Confessions of an Emotional Investigative Journalist
After years of making longform audio stories at Invisibilia, Yowei felt uneasy with the journalism she was doing. Was everyone getting something out of the exchange? Were emotions being flattened into tidy narratives? On her new podcast Proxy, she decided to tell stories with a different approach and to treat emotions not as narrative devices, but as subjects worthy of investigation themselves. In this talk, she shares findings from her new beat and what she’s learned trying to understand the mechanics behind the strange, often transformative magic of listening to – and truly being heard by – another person.
BREAK
KEYNOTES & LIVE PERFORMANCE
The Extraordinary Stories of Ordinary People
To follow the stories that mattered most, 13 years ago Elena left the newsroom and moved into a campervan with her partner, photographer Cosmin Bumbuț. Along the way, she learned a different kind of reporting: one built on intimate storytelling, centered on the lives of ordinary people who shape our present. These are the stories that matter, she believes, because they help us feel less alienated and live better together.
CLOSING DRINKS
SUNDAY, 22 MARCH
Registration & Welcome Coffee
KEYNOTES
Lana Bastašić in conversation
Art Needs to Be Human
In a world marked by war, rising authoritarianism, and moral fatigue, what is the writer’s role? In this conversation, Lana will reflect on the pressure placed on writers from “the margins” to perform a narrow version of themselves. From being consistently framed as an “Eastern European writer”, shelved by geography rather than by genre, to being welcomed abroad as a spokesperson for Bosnia and its wounds, she examines how writers are labeled, limited, and quietly disciplined. So what are the writer’s options: to retreat and create? To engage and risk being instrumentalized? To mirror anger, to hold onto hope, or somehow do both? In the end, Lana returns to a line that sits at the core of her work: if art isn’t human, it isn’t anything at all.
When Autocracy Stimulates Innovation
Just a few years ago, it looked like independent journalists in Hungary might be pushed out by mounting pressure from Viktor Orbán's autocratic government. Seemingly strong news outlets, some of them serving their audience for decades, were shut down or transformed into pro-government propaganda mouthpieces. But somehow, independent journalism not only survived – it began to thrive. András, co-founder of the investigative journalism center Direkt36, will tell how this happened.
BREAK
KEYNOTES
Nathan Thrall in conversation with Luiza Vasiliu
Starting from A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, this conversation ponders what intimate stories can accomplish amid seemingly intractable violence. Can they foster understanding or change? How does hope operate – or persist –, and what sustains it for Palestinians living through the reality of occupation? More broadly, we’ll talk about reporting and moral commitment as tools for making sense of the world as it is.
LUNCH BREAK & BOOK SIGNINGS
KEYNOTES
The Laboratory of Hope
Hope once meant trust: the expectation that something would happen, not just a wish. Today, hope is harder to sustain. In this talk, Irina draws on her own experiences and research to explore the role of the arts, especially in times of crisis. She also shares practical experiments for cultivating a creative life, and the unexpected confidence they have given her. Creativity, she argues, offers a space where we can rebuild trust in ourselves and imagine new possibilities for what we – or the world – might become.
Life Has No Restarts
As an illustrator and game developer facing a life-altering diagnosis, Ioana turns to storytelling, art, and games to rethink hope. Drawing on her creative work and a deeply personal journey, she explores hope not as wishful thinking that changes the odds, but as a force that shapes how we move through the story. After all, life has no restarts: only paths we actively create, and endings that give meaning to the journey.
The Last Ten Percent
When you're building a house, the last 10 percent – the finishing, the fine carpentry, how you hang your pictures – leaves the biggest impression. That's what visitors see. The same is true of our stories. They need to be well reported and structurally sound. But that last bit of polish, the rewriting, the fussing over word choice, the little cuts that make sentences fit like dovetails – that's the work that separates good from great. Maybe you're tired. Maybe you're fighting a deadline. But remember: these are the last moments your story is yours and yours alone. You still have all your hope for it. You're literally making your dreams come true. Enjoy it.
BREAK
KEYNOTES & LIVE PERFORMANCE
Some Good News about AI
The story of technology’s impact on media over the past decade has been one of increasing alienation, polarization and loneliness. But artificial intelligence could be a turning point, instead of another accelerant down this path. Drawing on his work in journalism, community theatre and AI products, Robin offers a hopeful vision of how AI can be used to facilitate and enhance human connection, empathy and fellowship.
Seven Guideposts for Stories and Life
Stories and life. Both are journeys. Neither comes with maps. No GPS, no travel agent, not even fold-out paper showing the routes. So how do we navigate when we’re traveling blind? After a career of potholes, detours, traffic jams, and dead ends, Jacqui found seven road markers that helped her do story work with purpose and joy. They have also become her guideposts for life – reminders that, even in these rocky times, there’s always a hopeful way forward.