Mounir Troudi, The Oldest Songs of Europe, photo provided by organizer

LUBLIN: MINDWARE, THE OLDEST SONGS OF EUROPE, THEATRE CONFRONTATIONS

 

The scope of the programme in Lublin includes projects carried out jointly by artists, animators and nongovernmental organisations from the locality and from Lviv, Vilnius, Minsk, Kyiv and Tbilisi. The cooperation is based, to a considerable extent, on exchange of artists. The dominant theme is a reflection on the boundaries of Europe and the boundaries of the European Union.

Mindware. Technologies of dialogue. Art residencies
20th September - 31st October

The Mindware residence programme provides ground for artistic reflection and intervention within the urban space of social communication. Nowadays, this space is dominated by digital media technologies and networks connecting them, which also determine the new ways of perceiving and understanding reality. Invitations to the Lublin residence will be given to young artists and critics from Eastern European countries, Poland and other European Union Member States who work in different domain of visual arts. Resident artists will face, with the help of communication and culture researchers, the physically existing urban hardware, that is urban infrastructure, and the operational system regulating its everyday use, that is the currently applied rules of communication. The works of art created within the framework of this project will constitute live software of culture, the realisation of Mindware.

During the residency period, the artists will benefit from the company of theorists in the field of social communication, the media and art. Their common task will be to recognise the potential associated with the concept of Mindware as seen from the perspective of dialogue between media arts, social art, social communication animation and humanities. As a result, apart from individual realisations created by the artists, a collective work will be prepared comprising papers defining the potential of Mindware in the light of existing dictionaries and humanistic theories.

The Oldest Songs of Europe. Tradition and avant-garde
6th - 12th October

During the International Festival The Oldest Songs of Europe. Tradition and the Avant-garde, the abundant vocal traditions of the Continent will be presented: hundreds of performance styles, instrumentaria and forms found both in the centre of Europe and its faraway reaches. The cultural code present in the songs: slang, musical scales and rhythms, instruments and clothes, were and still are an important constituent of identity. The festival will welcome artists reconstructing and performing ancient songs.

The programme of the special with regard to the Polish EU Council Presidency edition of the Festival will be broadened with the participation of artists representing other music genres: contemporary music, jazz, pop, etc., who are searching for inspiration in oldtime music traditions. The Festival will include concerts, exhibitions, lectures, meeting with artists or film screenings.

Theatre Confrontations Festival 
14th - 22nd October

The 16th edition of the Theatre Confrontations Festival is to continue the several year old programme involving the confrontation of the Russian theatre tradition with productions from a selected, artistically interesting geographic region. In the year marked by the Polish Presidency and the priority of Eastern Partnership, this area will cover the countries belonging to the Partnership, especially Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia. The performances from these countries, regarding the theme of migration, refugees and coexistence of fighting nations, will make up the programme of the main, international part of the festival.

In parallel, projects will be presented by avantgarde artists associated with the genre of physical theatre, which were shown in the previous years during the Matt Festival. This year, the festival will be merged with the Theatre Confrontations in order to facilitate contacts between artists and to foster constructive dialogue.

Another important element of the festival will be the so called Lublin Showcase, a presentation of works by artists originating from Lublin or otherwise associated with the city. As part of the showcase, celebrations of the 40th anniversary of Provisorium Theatre will be held. The festival will aim at promoting the work of young avantgarde visual artists by inviting them to present their works in urban public space within the framework of promotional activities.

A commentary to theatre presentations will be provided thanks to film screenings involving works of the masters of Soviet cinematography, with special emphasis on the representatives of Soviet countryside, and to meetings and discussions with creators and scientists, with the main panel entitled Russia as we don’t know it, dedicated to European tendencies in Russian humanistic and social thought.

The programme has been prepared in cooperation with the City Hall of Lublin, Centre for Culture, Worhskops of Culture the branch of LublinCentre for Culture, and "Crossroads" Centre for Intercultural Creative Initiatives .