EVENTS
The "Invisible Bridge" programme will be implemented throughout 2015 and will include a constellation of artistic and educational workshops: Bridge Academy, the Village of Bridge Builders and the "The Invisible Bridge" installation.
"The Invisible Bridge" Workshops will be a constellation of artistic and educational workshops whose task will be to develop the material from which the bridge-installation will be built and an accompanying story developed. The essence of the bridge building process lies in the fact that it is constructed from the local matter, memory of the place and creative imagination of its inhabitants. The participants of these workshops will be residents of Sejny and of fifteen villages around Krasnogruda, including Poles, Lithuanians and Russian Old Believers.
The following workshops will be organized: the Workshop of the Bridge, Word and Tale, Deep Song, Music of the Place, Mysteries of Childhood, Mask, Nature, Weaving, Picture and Sound, Bridge Library and the Bridge Pantry. The workshops will be conducted by outstanding artists, culture animators and educators with many years of experience in artistic work in multicultural environments.
The Bridge Academy is a cycle of seminars with the Neimar (master of bridge building) presentations of books, films, texts, individual projects and other practices that have become a subject of a debate. Participants of the BA will be a group of 60 persons from the Polish-Lithuanian borderlands, as well as students, teachers and leaders of intercultural projects from other regions. Among the Bridge Academy masters will be: Olga Tokarczuk (writer), Roberto Calasso (writer, philosopher), Yaarah Bar-on (Professor of History, Rector of Oranim Academic College of Education in Israel), Said Abu Shakra (director of the gallery and art centre in the Palestinian Umm el-Fahem), Gwen Burnyeat (leader of the Peace Brigades International movement, involved in the building of the famous "Community of Peace" in Uruba, Colombia), Jessica A. Kaahwa (professor of history of the African theatre at the Makerere University, Uganda, who runs her own theatre and a number of "theatre for conflict resolution" projects, especially on the borderlands with Rwanda). The Village of Bridge Builders will be organized in Krasnogruda and will operate all throughout August 2015. The programme will be implemented on the premises of the International Centre for Dialogue, in Krasnogruda park and in the especially for that purpose put up yurt tents. The group of participants will be composed of nearly 150 people, including leaders of intercultural activities from various border regions of the world: Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. The programme of VBB will include workshops, presentations of practices, artistic events, lectures and debates. An especially for that purpose organized radio and television station will broadcast daily on-line programmes in Polish and English. Parallel to all the activities above, the VBB participants will be involved in the construction of "The Invisible Bridge".
The Invisible Bridge will be a sculpture installation built around the story of Neimar and the art of bridge building in the contemporary world. Its construction will be planned in the way allowing the VBB participants to have their share in the construction of some of the elements of the bridge. The bridge will be built in the open space of the Krasnogruda park as a unique art installation that meets the aesthetic and symbolic function, at the same time utilizing various activities of the project. Its design will be based on two towers, symbolizing art and knowledge, as well as separateness of cultures or individuals. The bridge will have an open form, filled with a rich system of signs and symbols that will demand a skill of reading them in order to discover the secret of the bridge and as a result the "access code" allowing the passage to the other side. The construction of the bridge will make it possible to adapt it as a venue of meetings, dialogue and debates. The Bridge will be a venue of workshops for "bridge-builders" and educational projects. It can also serve as a gallery/space for exhibitions and multimedia shows. Finally, the bridge will be a very important part of the scenography and a venue used for staging theatrical performances. The bridge will symbolically connect the shores of Krasnogruda - a specific local community with whose mandate and participation it will be built - with the shores of the Other e.g. with a partner community to be cooperated with, with the world, modernity, with difficult memories, with ethnic minorities or the socially excluded, with environmental issues, etc.
"The Tales of Coexistence" - presentation (September 2015 - April 2016). The Tale will include a multimedia presentation telling the story of bridge building as an artistic installation recording its particular stages, a documentary film report, and the publication of "The Book of Co-existence."
Work on the theatrical performance of "Medea Ponte" (September 2015 - April 2016), based on the tale "Medea: Alien - Other - Own" that will developed as part of the Colchis tale workshop. Its spatial and set base will be the construction of the Bridge. Its material will draw on various Krasnogruda Workshops. It will be produced by the guest of the Village of Bridge Builders. The theatre performance will be a result of our work on Bridge Building, art workshops and Krasnogruda Workshops. Its eventual aim will be, however, a projection of the work into the future, transition into another dimension, into the space of sacrum, seeking an artistic language to express ideas, aspirations and challenges that will have appeared in the earlier stages of the project. The staging of "Medea Pont" will be organized basing on the local theatre ensemble. It will be a group performance staged under the direction of its leader, the director.
Medea's Travels Colchis Workshop - (September 2015 - March 2016): - developed under the framework of the project will not be a one-of event but a repeatable one, allowing multiple presentations to different audiences in different geographical locations and cultures. The same will be possible with the three basic elements of the project - Bridge, Colchis and Mystery. A separate, very important objective of the "Tale of Coexistence" is the construction of a partner network around it. It would be based on the creation of a whole archipelago of Colchis-communities, bound with the construction of the Bridge from the resources and thanks to the joint effort of the local community. The first workshop trip presenting the Krasnogruda Colchis, the work on the building of the Bridge and "Medea Ponte" performance is planned for March 2016 in Oslo and Nottoden.
The author of the concept and the artistic curator of the project is Krzysztof Czyżewski- practician of the idea, writer, theatre director and animator of intercultural dialogue, co-founder of the "Borderland" Foundation and Centre and the International Centre for Dialogue in Krasnogruda. He has authored books, plays and international projects dedicated to the meeting with the Other - through art, community action and spiritual work. He has worked on various borderlands of the world as a leader of the "Borderland", but also as an expert of Ford Foundation, member of the Arts and Culture Programme of the Open Society Institute in Budapest. He is the Chairman of the Eastern Partnership Culture Congress, and Ambassador of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.
