Cultura Circular was a capacity-building programme for arts and culture festivals across Latin America and the Caribbean, delivered by Julie’s Bicycle with support from the British Council Americas. This case study highlights the work of Crack Bang Boom in Argentina from the programme’s 2025-2026 cohort.
In culture, sustainability and climate change are no longer distant concepts but immediate realities. Across music, literature, and the performing arts, various events are showcasing innovative formats for community engagement and environmental awareness.
Drastic changes in ecosystems and extreme weather events increasingly resonate in daily conversations. What can be done in the face of this scenario? How can one overcome anxiety or discouragement? These questions are pressing, and the cultural sector offers a fertile field of action for those seeking answers.
Festivals, regardless of their discipline—be it music, performing arts, literature, or visual arts—and whether they take place in cities or rural areas, on a small or large scale, are fundamentally gathering points. Once a year, they serve to bring together people, traditions, customs, rituals, and emotions, driven by shared interests and, increasingly, by environmental awareness.
Crack Bang Boom: Comics and Social Awareness
As Argentina’s most significant comic festival and a major global event, this four-day festival in Rosario attracted 80,000 participants in 2025. It connects the public with leading figures in the comic medium and fosters opportunities for new generations of comic writers, illustrators, and readers.
The annual event functions as a platform for talent discovery, offering job and training opportunities through workshops led by national and international editors. Furthermore, its Comic Contest actively promotes social awareness. Past themes have included protecting wetlands (2022), fighting bullying (2023), and appreciating local ecosystems and fauna. For the 2024 festival, the golden fish of the Paraná River served as both the mascot and the central figure on the promotional posters.
For the 2025 edition, the festival demonstrated its commitment to climate action by producing a fanzine using risography. This technique was chosen for its low energy consumption and eco-friendly inks, and the use of leftover and test-print paper actively promoted recycling awareness. A cutting-edge element of the festival is its webcomic section. This initiative champions online comics through talks and exhibitions held in the metaverse. It gained visibility as an ecological alternative to excessive book printing, with the support of British comic artist David Lloyd (illustrator of V for Vendetta), a key promoter of this trend.
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