The European Pavilion 2024: Liquid Becomings
A production by espaço agora now in partnership with FLOW, MS-Fusion, Teatro Meia Volta and United Artist Labour.
In June 2023, the European Cultural Foundation launched a Call for Proposals to curate and host The European Pavilion 2024. The selection of the laureate of the 500,000 EUR commissioning grant was entrusted to an independent jury chaired by Sepake Angiama and comprising Ferran Barenblit, Máté Gáspár, Hassan Mahamdallie, Teja Reba, Françoise Vergès, and Olga Wysocka.
From the many outstanding proposals received, the jury selected Liquid Becomings, by the independent artists' collective espaço agora now and its partner organizations FLOW (Poland), MS-Fusion (Austria), Teatro Meia Volta (Portugal), and United Artist Labour (Serbia).
Taking the form of four boats sailing on four European rivers—the Danube, the Tagus, the Rhine, and the Vistula—before coming together in Lisbon, Liquid Becomings constructively challenges the model of national pavilions and the imaginaries they represent. Orchestrating a movement across borders, drawing on the symbolic richness of water while underlining the urgencies it also conveys, and emphasizing the fluidity of European identity itself, Liquid Becomings also brings an unexpected and innovative perspective to the debate on Europe.
The boats, each with a crew of five artists and a captain, will focus on four themes (“Ruins and Monsters”, “Perimeters”, “Togetherness”, “Bodies and Politics”). During their twenty-eight-day journey, the artist crews will research ideas of new imaginaries, alternative living, and speculative futures. Each of the boats are simple vessels that offer a sustainable, slow mode of travel.
In November 2024, all the boats will join forces in Lisbon. A three-day artistic program will link the old port of Beato with Quinta Alegre, a socio-cultural complex in the north of the city. The program will open with Public Kitchen by Teatro Meia Volta, a community and artistic event based on the cuisine of all the inhabitants of the parish of Santa Clara during which stories will be shared about travel, migration, and wishes for the future. The three days will include specially commissioned new work by Portuguese artists, including writer Gonçalo Tavares, performative, sound artist and musician Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, and theatre maker Paula Diogo.
The encounters and conversations, meals, rituals, and stories will be translated into a new mythology for Europe, told by artists and citizens. A future told by the river, a future told by all of us.
The European Pavilion 2024: Liquid Becomings is curated by Bojan Đorđev, Laura Kalauz, Maria Magdalena Kozłowska, Siniša Ilić, Alfredo Martins, Annette Mees, Naomi Russell, Olga Uzikaeva.
The European Pavilion
The European Pavilion is a pan-European and multidisciplinary arts program that puts the question of Europe and its future at the forefront through artistic projects and art commissions. It was launched by the European Cultural Foundation in 2021 and stems from the belief that we need more cultural spaces that go beyond national remits to explore and imagine what Europe is and what it can or should become.
By offering fresh and inspiring perspectives on Europe and its future, The European Pavilion contributes to bringing Europe closer to its communities and to the Foundation’s mission to strengthen a European sentiment.
espaço agora now
espaço agora now is a new independent platform that is reimagining artist development and public experiment in the performing arts. We celebrate radical imagination and radical artists as illuminating and galvanising forces in the centre of society.
espaço agora now is driven by a growing movement of artists, producers, and cultural activists around the world. Together they are organically creating an international network of spaces that establish fresh connections between performing artists, local citizens, and public action.
The starting point for espaço agora now was the need in the performing arts for ‘liquidity’ of time and space when ideas are first formed, and the need to bring different disciplines and communities together. They asked: Could we gather enough critical mass to create spaces for residencies together, open them up in new ways, as vital necessities for our collective futures?
Contact
For press inquiries, please contact Friso Wiersum, ECF Communications Manager: fwiersum@culturalfoundation.eu / T +31-6-47158535.
