Moving Borders
Moving Borders is a cooperation project among seven European production houses, festivals and public bodies in the sphere of performing arts.
The partners will examine new ways of producing performing art projects while approaching and involving a broader spectrum of individuals and communities focusing on so far underrepresented groups.
Moving Borders will use artistic methods to initiate encounters between people of different origins and social milieus.
EU project "Moving Borders“ presents Arts projects in 7 European cities
Since 2019, seven European production houses, festivals, private and public institutions in the sphere of performing arts have been working together with the British ensemble “Quarantine” on the project “Moving Borders” to create various local editions of the same participatory project in public space, be it physical or digital, which aim to question and redefine regional, social, and cultural borders.
Results will be presented as arks from June to September 2021. The individually designed projects will be a place for encounters, participation, discourse, and performances. During the last two years, the partner cities Porto, Athens, Strasbourg, Dresden, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Warsaw, and Utrecht questioned local borders and their types and manifestations – geographical, architectural, social, cultural, etc. – and developed a content and conceptual framework, which is programmatically filled by "Quarantine", local artists, activists, and citizens. "Moving Borders" is a model-project of international cooperation. At a time when nationalist, xenophobic, and other discriminatory movements are once again experiencing a dangerous upswing in Europe, and economic inequality is growing, it creates an outlook for a new togetherness.“Quarantine“ was founded in 1998 by the directors Richard Gregory and Renny O'Shea, and the designer Simon Banham in Manchester, UK. Today they operate as an ensemble of artists and producers working worldwide in the fields of theater, performance, and public intervention. The artistic concept ARK was developed by the Quarantine ensemble from an original idea by artist Kate Daley to create and stimulate exchange all over Europe, and to be a symbol for a world that endures, promotes, and welcomes diversity. The arks in public space will gather local artists, citizens, and social communities that would otherwise not meet, configuring the circumstances for a progressive democratic space, such as the kind political theorist Chantal Mouffe describes as agonistic pluralism.
Athens: Kivotos Channel
03–06 June 2021 | ARK Mülheim: The Summer Awakening
In the time of social distance and isolation during the lockdown, it becomes clear that the gap in our society is not a new, pandemic-related problem, but was already there before. In Mülheim too, the realization is growing that the city has been divided for a long time already. And the question of what a city actually is, and means is trickling into the collective consciousness. From 3 to 6 June 2021, international and local artists will create an ark for art and culture in the "Ringlokschuppen" and the "MüGA Park" to question what living together in a city can mean. It aims to rediscover urban society as such and create a new togetherness – a ‘we’ without a hostile ‘the others.’
The event will take place as an ongoing online stream and hopefully also (if allowed and possible in a corona-safe way) on site on the outdoor stage and at the surrounding park area.
10 June 2021 | ARK Athens: Kivotos Channel | online
Kivotos Channel is a fake TV channel curated and performed by a diverse group of Athenians. Throughout a 2-month lab, the community will create a series of self-contained episodes of a weird show and explore extravagant ways to deal with the anticipation for the day after the catastrophe. The program will be broadcasted on Onassis YouTube Channel. "Welcome to the Kivotos Channel! A safe space for vulnerable bodies, femininities, relational politics and radical imagination for the day after. How can we possibly seize social agency adopting survival, funny and unexpected strategies in a new unthinkable world?"
01–10 July 2021 | ARK Porto: A School at the Edge of Nowhere
With the aim of reflecting and analyzing Porto's socio-cultural environment, a temporary school is being created in a square at the intersection of different parishes, communities, and routes. In collaboration with different collectives, associations, and groups of artists and thinkers, new cartographies will be created, both on printed paper and in the form of walks, lectures and discussions about the emerging visions and possibilities of thinking, being and building together in one city.
09–12 July 2021 | ARK Dresden: Ark for underestimated knowledge
In Dresden a place will be created on the banks of the Elbe, already used and appreciated by all citizens: the "Ark for Underestimated Knowledge" where an exchange of experiences, workshops, performances, conversations, and encounters takes place. It aims to collect knowledge and experiences of different communities and make them visible, such as people who had to leave their homes due to existential threats and left behind not only things and beloved people but also knowledge and experiences that are not as relevant here. A new vision of the future will be created from the things we want to take with us from the past and everything that is newly created on the Ark.
16–18.07.2021 | ARK Strasbourg
Specifically designed for Strasbourg, ‘European capital,’ international and cross-border city, ARK Strasbourg explores the subjects of communication and equity in a culturally and socially diverse community.
ARK Strasbourg opens up a space for long-term exchanges punctuated by several formats of workshops and meetings. The high point at Le Maillon, from 16 to 18 July, will be the opening of the Ark to the public, featuring and open to all: novel ways to share knowledge from all horizons, playful excursions into multilingual conversations, subjective guided tours of the European district for one member of the public at a time and vocal experimentation.
02–12 September 2021 | ARK Warsaw
Warsaw Ark is taking shape of a former school building marking border between old city quarter with its vivid local community and new city downtown looking for further extension.
With independent artists currently occupying building, as well as neighbors – both those living nearby for decades, as well as newcomers from office skyscrapers – we want to take journey negotiating how the building might become meeting point for both communities, what kind of values this space holds for the old community, and what can offer to new neighbors – beyond being just another piece of land for yet another glass tower.
In the series of workshops, we will create performative installation, showing possibilities of coexistence of those two realities, and being invitation for entire city, to discuss its social ecosystem in the moment of rapid changes and development.
16–19 September 2021 | ARK Utrecht: City of Trust
ARK Utrecht is a city celebration and revolves around a figuratively ark, a fantasy ship filled with dream images on which we sail confidently from the crisis into a new future and in which we save what we find important, create what is missing and leave behind what we no longer need. Two colorful trucks converted into arks will travel from 16 to 19 September 2021 through all the different and diverse neighborhoods of Utrecht. Around this driving city-artwork a programme full of encounters, interventions and activities will take place, created by city residents and community centers, as well as artists and cultural organizations. The whole neighborhood is invited to get ‘on board’, to take a look or make a contribution. Meetings will take place through discussion tables, art installations, exhibitions, music, pop-up performances, talk shows, debates, inspiration sessions, parades, rituals or workshops.
