"Art saves lives" is not a slogan; it is the name of a Festival in a nation falling to pieces amid fratricidal wars.
Eugenio Barba
"Festival" sense from Holderlin/Heid, perhaps. I'm not sure what's become of Barba -- presumably he's still out there making things. I never met him (so far as I know), but I've always read his writing very carefully when working with his epigones. I'm no longer in touch with the friends of mine who are friends of his. I think he's left his theatre in the north, and gone off with his Xanthippe/dark lady. Long life and prosperity.
This is from the introduction to a text on a theatre in Belgrade that celebrated its 25th anniversary a decade ago, and with which I crossed paths briefly for a day or two as a visitor, spectator, and conversant some years before that. On the drive out of town, the member of the theatre pointed out the Baljoni market, which has been one of the places I've always returned to when visiting the city. (Excellent fresh fruit and durable long socks.)
That market is also a center of a book called Waves of the Belgrade Sea, which I found for $1 on the top-floor clearance racks of the large bookstore by Bansko bridge on a subsequent visit. Every bookish Belgrader whom I've talked to about it professed not to have heard of it, but it seems ubiquitous in foreign library holdings. Peculiar. There are some other similar offbeat neighborhood-histories in the English-language section of the larger stores.
I still remember, on my first visit, being gobsmacked that there was a large bookstore in every small neighborhood. The clerk of the one near my apartment was highly amused at that. Statistically, Americans read less than one book every year. Though, scrutinizing the B&N windows, I can't say that I blame them. But sometimes there are brief flashes of light in the windows of the independent stores.