Pražské quadriennale 2019

The curators of the USITT Exhibit for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space recognize that the United States is a nation of immigrants and celebrates our diversity. The majority of individuals living in the U.S. today have immigrant roots. Those immigrant roots, together with the people that can trace their ancestry back to one of the 500 plus Native American tribes, are the cultural DNA of the artists who create the work in our theatrical communities. This rich cultural diversity and wisdom contributes to the creativity, ingenuity, and knowledge that we find inspirational and which we desire and struggle to share through this exhibition. With this in mind, the curators have selected work for this exhibition that represents the finest in artistic achievement presented in the U.S in the last 4 years and to showcase the cultural DNA of the artist behind the work. We recognize the importance of focusing on the work and representing a diversity of work from different corners of the American theatrical landscape. We have attempted to feature work from a variety of individuals, genres, presentation styles, disciplines, regions, and institutions. This process included actively reaching out across our vast population and geography to acquire a broad cross section of work as we attempt the near impossible task of representing a country as large and diverse as the United States. In addition to the selected work, the exhibition incorporates the oral history of the designers, positioning them in relationship to the field and their own work. This comprises the designer’s own background, their connection to performance design, their mentors and influencers, who they have mentored and influenced, and how these factors have affected their approach to design and the designs themselves. The exhibition space design, ​Concordance, began as abstracted shapes of each region of the United States--north, south, east, and west--to create the perimeter elements of the exhibition space, ​which in itself is evocative of scared spaces of our indigenous cultures. The center sculpture is comprised of ​quotes from our forefathers in theatrical design. It also represents the unifying concept of art, thought, inspiration and symbolizes the source of creativity: the Idea. For more information about programming in this exhibition, please visit: http://pq19.usitt.org/professional/north-american-cluster Exhibit space design: Paige A. Willson, Ellen Doyle Mizener, Clint Allen, Erich Keil

Cemetery of performances in black coffins buried in dead-sea salt reverberates the “Black Box” as a blank canvas for the work of the scenography artists the Theater is a fleeting art. The life span of each performance is short. When the show closes and the curtain goes down, it dies – leaving behind, to be preserved, only memories, pictures and ruins of sets and costumes. The title is inspired by the Dead Sea, Sea of Salt in Hebrew, which is earth’s lowest (about 1600 feet below sea level,) and saltiest lake - rendering it quite uninhabitable, hence its name. On the other hand, the Dead Sea possesses immense healing and preserving powers due to an abundance of minerals. As a result, the sea is being massively exploited, and is slowly diminishing. Can this idea be a call for the preservation of the Dead Sea, Earth and the art of performance? Curator-designer: Polina Adamov

Africa, the most on any continent with 54 sovereign countries, is very diverse, with each country, or even each part of a country, having its own unique culture. Africa today is a vast continent with many bustling metropolises facing a new era of metamorphosis, where safaris are no longer an attraction, but mind mining instead is the language that we speak. Theatre Designs from more than 6 Different African Countries.

Hong Kong is a city that is all-embracing. With the historical context of East meeting West, a diversity of elements within the city can coexist and accommodate each other. This is true with theatre, where over 9,000 performances of various genres have been produced annually in this small place. In response to Hong Kong’s theatre phenomenon, we have invited the majority of local designers and artists to compose as an “all-in-one” installation to represent the full spectrum of Hong Kong's theatre stage design. This installation will adopt the notions of “Shared Space”, “Movable Space”, “Flexible Space” and “Virtual Space” in order to juxtapose Hong Kong's style of daily use of space along with the application of theatre in this unique city. The interaction between audience and individual displays is an improvisational act that explores the body schema and sensory impulses of Hong Kong Theatre Complex. *The project is supported by “the Arts Development Fund of the Home Affairs Bureau, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region” Hong Kong Arts Development Council

In the middle of 20th century, scenography emerged in Morocco as a discipline in its own right to oppose static scenery for the first time. That said, since the latter evolves in exponential. Today, apart from the work on volume, material, and light, new techniques such as video mapping and focusing on the body as a scenography are topical. Given the novelty of this discipline, we considered it important to participate in the PQ, to represent what is done in Morocco and see what is happening internationally. Sharing is our main purpose, coming from the creation of international cooperation dynamics. Since 2017, Amin Boudrika, the curator, followed steps with a lot of insistence to represent Morocco to the PQ. By collaborating with the association of which it is part, Corpscène, and the factory Reflex'Art this participation becomes possible.

VR performance with architectural poetry. Imagine two cities, where the inhabitants live in parallel realities. Every building is a hybrid; two functions and two spaces co-exist simultaneously. Within a single building, one can be at home or in the cemetery, at the market place or in a stadium, you are able to decide how to be in both places at the same time. While at a holy site, you might find yourself in a public toilet, in a greenhouse you might also be in the garbage dump. The urban fabric is a direct emanation of a split-state. Every function shadows its other function. Intertwining architectural forms create a hybrid and far-reaching city full of paradoxes and uncharted paths. The community is made from rumor and ritual exchanges of code. The doubled shadow architecture is the total fulfillment of Utopia, where the cities undergo unending hybridization and expansion. From this emergent order the scenario of your experience unravels.

We know it, we are experiencing an unprecedented ecological crisis. If we do not change the way we do things now, global warming will disrupt the world in which our children will live. The curator of the Québec exhibition wishes to explore the profound transformations that we must address today as designers in order to invent together a scenography of the future. Unavoidable in societal debates at a worldwide level, environmental issues must now be applied to our ways to create, build, produce and teach the performing arts professions. Designers have difficulty experimenting with new paradigme that align them with the ecological footprint of their work. Caught in our habits, trapped by the lack of space, out of breath from the frenetic pace of productions and led on by the extent of our imaginations, the challenge is great. This exhibition chose to highlight an aspect of creation that is rarely shown: the waste generated by these magnificent works. Designs are presented under four categories. A first section addresses issues of obsolescence of scenic technology, a second section shows sets that have generated a large amount of waste, another presents materials associated with the body and a last section proposes works that have an ecological conscience in the design itself. Québec therefore presents the achievements of designers with diverse practices, questioning them on the conflict between their artistic vision and their environmental awareness. It also offers a friendly space for exchange and reflection with visitors, to try to collectively find avenues for solutions. The exhibit seeks to shed light on each part of the production process in an attempt to modify it. How do we approach decline whilst continuing to innovate? How do we work more humbly whilst continuing to grow? Environmentalism is doomed to fail if it is thought of in an anti-creative perspective. We are a hardworking and inventive species. Creation and progress cannot be seen as the enemy. Who knows, theatre could hold the key to a renewed environmentalism for the world to come?

We humans have learned how to collect and process data. Computational tools and digital technologies are a new type of infrastructure that allow humans to measure, record, and visualize natural phenomena in real time. However, can we also put this new technology in order to understand our impact on nature? Can such a symbiotic mix open up possibilities for new shapes and aesthetics, new ways of understanding and critical thinking? To what extent is full-blown digitalisation and the new complexity of natural landscape moving people away from the sensorial and romantic representation they had of nature? Against this backdrop, the project creates a performative scenographic landscape, a social and dynamic spatial platform that invites the audience to embark on an interactive journey, and highlights how the contemporary Swiss landscape blends natural, artificial, infrastructural, and digital realms. The design of the space is inspired by the aesthetic of Swiss infrastructure, specifically by construction profiles (Bauprofile), which in Switzerland function as a means of announcing prospective new buildings and triggering a (political) debate. As members of the public enter the space to observe, interact, and perform, the shape of the space will be altered to form artificial terrains reminiscent of Swiss mountain landscapes in the textile ceiling roof. The full digitalisation of the scene, projected in real time on a hanging screen, is used in a metaphorical way to raise awareness of the impact and modifications people and infrastructure may cause to natural environments. Through a variety of processes, reinterpretable images of Switzerland emerge as an idyllic and natural comfort zone, aimed at bringing together digital technologies and ecological awareness. This exhibition includes performances: 06. 06. 2019 17:45 07. 06. 2019 – 15. 06. 2019 11:20, 14:30, 17:45 16. 06. 2019 16:30

Asi-Opa exhibits scenography of the unique features of motherland and the world's last surviving nomadic culture. It makes same impression with modern scenographic by that it becomes Mongolian unusual and wild nature, nomadic cultural heritage, mentality and space of Mongolian folk's imagination. The theatrical performance Asi-Opa was performed in the theaters of Mongolia and Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region of China). It consist of 12 pieces of scenographic designs, sketches, video and visual media products including opera, drama, and music’s written by the world's famous artists and Mongolian authors. • Movement • Impact • Development are general contents of Nomadic Theater. It exhibits a unique nature, nomadic heritage, mentality, imagination of Mongols and improvisation and space is connected with the modern scenography designs. Nomadic civilization and nomadic lifestyle does not stay fixed and it is in continues movement which allows to reflect freely necessary elements of any cultures.

For PQ 2019 the Icelandic curatorial team has chosen to present set and costume designer Eva Signý Berger. Eva has a distinct but diverse style and the worlds she creates are exciting visual experiences. A profound sensitivity to texture informs her compositions on both the large and small scale. By combining this with the repetitive appearance of structural and moveable elements, a symbolic relationship between text and stage emerges. For the Icelandic exposition Eva, will present the collaborative choreographic and visual artwork Atomstar (Atómstjarna). Devised during the renovation of Ásmundarsalur, an iconic building in Reykjavík, Atomstar was a multidisciplinary experience where the body and movement were central. The human being was torn apart and sewn back together in different ways, shedding light on the multiplicity, dimensions, and dreams it contains. Built in 1933, Ásmundarsalur was the residence and studio of two Icelandic sculptors, Ásmundur Sveinsson and his wife, Gunnfríður Jónsdóttir. From 2016 to 2018 the building underwent extensive renovations, reopening as a multi-functional art space, with Atomstar as its first event. The Atomstar collaborators began working on-site during renovation, getting to know the building´s details and history. Delving into the core of the physical structure, they developed ideas and created artworks, video installations and performances. The designs and artworks were initially inspired by these concepts and questions: - the infinitely large and infinitely small - the human gaze, deep into space and deep into the body - the similarities, repetitions and unpredictabilities found between these different universes. The original conception was transformed contemporaneously with the building, its history, and the lives and work of its former inhabitants becoming an ever larg er part of the work, fusing with the original ideas and taking them in unexpected directions. A small universe was created, where past and present merged. The different spaces where connected by sound and the movement of performers through the building. Coming to Prague, this work has undergone yet another transformation; it has been dismantled and put back together for another site. The performances have become installations. The work was a universe of it's own; now it is an island in a multiverse of exhibitions.

The Spanish Pavilion is the creation of the scenographer Alejandro Andujar and the sound designer Luis Miguel Cobo, who draws his inspiration for this 5 x 5 metre installation from the spatial plastic concept of the minimalist tradition as an artistic current. A cube divided by multiple narrow corridors that one can walk through. These corridors, an homage to the wings of a theatre, contain a world of sound that plays different languages, giving us, as spectators passing through, a perception in sound of the enormous diversity of the world we live in. As visitors wander through the installation, they will hear these different languages, turning the whole installation into a contemporary, metaphorical, poetic and abstract Tower of Babel... The borders … We are already migrants, an inescapable condition of the digital revolution that has created the globalised times in which we live. At the same time, we perceive our modern day as kaleidoscopic and fragmented, subdivided. We live among threats and identities that are pushed apart because they believe themselves to be in conflict. Knowledge and artistic creation, together with the emotions and the human heart (which need each other as allies) are the instruments that will make communication flow and generate new bridges. Many of the possible answers and solutions can be found, as they have been for centuries, in philosophy, literature and the theatre, those founts of eternal wisdom, frontier wisdom.

The Czech pavilion is a gate to a parallel reality. Are these custodians or employees of a government agency that are welcoming you? The connection to the island Štvanice leaves every half an hour. There is the core of the Czech exposition - a different world - an intergalactic integration camp. The realisation of immersive stage design installation is created by generationally connected group of Czech stage designers, architects, urbanists that are allied especially to the independent scene. The CAMPQ project live presents their specific poetics. Enter the CAMPQ and experience a night on island among aliens! A unique installation and immersive production to occasion of the 14th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. The biggest co-production project in the history of Czech theatre. CAMPQ is one of the many camps where the newcomers from other planets have found their refuge - mysterious Phoenic women, survivors of the technically advanced civilization Zeyris and animalistic Attas that haven´t stopped worshiping their Queen even on the planet Earth. Do they have a right to be among us? Are we able to integrate them? An audience will be given a chance to find answers to these questions either by visiting the exhibition or during the immersive production - almost eight hours long visit on an “Open Day” of this unique adaptation camp. Claudia Cedó, Joan Yago, Marie Nováková and David Košťák: CAMPQ

Come... Come, whatever you are, come! Whether you are a non-believer or a zoroastrian or an idolater, come! Our lodge is not a lodge of despair. Even if you violate your repentance a hundred times, come back!...Come to Know Each Other / Make Things Easy

CONGLOMERATE is a hi-tech beehive made of hexagonal cells – each with its own core of data and personality. The cores consist of circles with AR codes. The hive is full of constantly transforming life, weaved with cohabitation and cooperation. A bio-mechanical globe, an interactive data bubble that hosts different virtual realities. The uniform grid of the space frame is interrupted by hollow and solid sections to form an "organism" that is in constant motion and transformation.The pavilion combines parametric design with steam punk style to create a machine for virtual travel. Visitors are taken on stage of virtually presented performances with the VR headsets - the bee heads. By using the tablets and AR codes the audience can browse trough a library of more than 50 Bulgarian performances separated in 6 genres - drama, puppet theatre, opera, cinema, dance, and performing arts. CONGLOMERATE is a system made of many unique creations that depict "the shape" of Bulgarian scenography.

As our imagination is practiced against life challenges (nationality, finance, sexuality, etc.), we ask how our profession transforms our work. How does the audience perceive the staged performance? How does their perception, how do their habits alter the scenography? Our multidimensional world is decreased in extended digital devices that ever multiply.

An Exploration of Irish Design through the Medium of Virtual Reality Presented in Virtual Reality, the Irish exhibition is curated by Jo Mangan, Artistic Director of Carlow Arts Festival and The Performance Corporation. This exhibition meets designers and their work within a Virtual Reality world – in their studios, on stage, in 360 visualisations, and during the inevitable destruction of their creations. With this approach we try to capture the reality that stage design exists for short and beautiful periods of time and the struggle to capture the essence of the live experience. This project is funded by Culture Ireland and supported by the Arts Council Film Credits Director Jo Mangan Filmed and Edited by Jack Morrow / RETìníZE Associate Director Peter Power Curator Jo Mangan Featured Designers John Comiskey, Set and Lighting Designer in his home studio Peter Power, Composer, featuring music from In Clouds co-composed with Michael Gallen Katie Davenport, Set Designer, featuring Hoffmann’s Eye from The Tales of Hoffmann Sarah Jane Shiels, Lighting Designer, featuring excerpts from Dublin Oldschool Ciaran Bagnall, Set and Lighting Designer, featuring the set of Hard to be Soft – A Belfast Prayer, Red, and The Luminaire Club in his home studio Niall Rea, Set Designer, featuring the set for The Belfast Tempest Catherine Fay, Costume Designer, featuring costumes from Bastard Amber, Totems, The Return of Ulysses and Orfeo ed Euridice Sound Design Peter Power Digital Artist “Hoffmann’s Eye” Istvan Laszlo Text written and performed by Emmet Kirwan Dancer Justine Cooper Technical Team Laura Honan, Bill Woodland – The Lir, Pádraig O’Grady & David Cosgrove – RETìníZE Producer Tríona Ní Dhuibhir

The action of the play unfolds in a dining room of a Paris apartment, painfully revealing the mind labyrinths of André who is suffering from Alzheimer. Strange characters appear in the room along with the family members. Pieces of fine furniture disappear one after another, ultimately stripping the space naked, creating a bare black uncertainty. The confusing exits and entrances actually lead into a black impasse, a metaphor of a lost mind. The exhibition re-stages a scene in which a demonic Man has kicked André's head, and while Anne is entering the room with a roast chicken, the father is found crouched sobbing in the corner. Instead of a Man, Pierre is found standing in the dining room. With a slight demonic look, there is a strange resemblance with the former. The key moment in the play is also a counterpoint leading to an end in which the father is driven into ultimate amnesia, becoming a prisoner in the hands of a white Nurse. A Man in a white doctor’s uniform mysteriously re-appears. Clinging to the Nurse in despair, the last image of the play reveals a white hospital bed that has become the last haven for André. Artist: Lilja Blumenfeld, Sculptor: Terje Ojaver, Wig Maker: Kerli Laaberg, Sound Designer: Markus Robam, Multimedia & Light Designer: Mait Visnapuu, Assistant of Artist: Margit Roosaar, Graphic Designer: Mari Kaljuste, Director: Maria Peterson, Actor: Lembit Peterson, Actor: Liina Olmaru, Actor: Marius Peterson, Technical Manager: Ago Märjama, Curator: Inga Vares SUPPORTERS: Estonian Cultural Endowment (Kultuurkapital) Estonian Ministry of Culture (Kultuuriministeerium) Association of Estonian Scenographers (ELKL) Theatrum Estonian Museum of Architecture (Arhitektuurimuuseum EAM) Estonian Embassy in Prague

Time is symmetrically pure and mutable; it provides a holistic understanding for our existence and evolution, for time evolves and consequently has an unambiguous origin and preordained conclusion. There are certain grey areas remaining in the history of our minds that fascinate us so much about our origins, discoveries, and destination. We, the Egyptians, view our civilization as a legacy coming directly from the divine beings who existed in Egypt thousands of years before the ancient Egyptian dynasties that we know about. And a long thousands of years we’ve been exposed to diverse culture invasions that had a consensual influence on our behavioral intelligence overtime till the underlying causes of more social, political, economic, and cultural phenomena that characterize Egyptian society in modern times. A question that is as old as time and that will always remain is what does the future hold for such an experienced nation who invented the key of life?

The word "elsewhere" suggests another place, another existence in an unusual sense: We are "here", while the performance site is "elsewhere". The place described in a script is always "elsewhere". Designers’ horizons benefit from the span of time and space. The history and reality far away in "elsewhere" enable us to examine ourselves in a deeper and broader context. Artists obsess over a perfect order, a transcendent ideal, in which ‘elsewhere’ discloses their bigotry, curiosity, and madness. This exhibition includes an additional performance/installation in the Prague Exhibition Grounds. "Elsewhere" not only emphasises the relevance of "here" to "there"; it also reveals a sense of eternal division of time and space. When a work drowns in an ocean of wordy rhetoric and vacuous concepts, losing the texture of existence and the immediacy of experience, we warn ourselves: this place is "elsewhere", a fantasy, a fiction. It becomes a concept opposite to "the thing-in-itself" being forcefully endowed meaning, and reminds us of the difference between our imagined selves and our actual selves. "Elsewhere" also means the limitation of boundary and the infinity of the world. Throughout history, humans have always sought new approaches and perspectives from elsewhere to use to shatter visible limitations and achieve internal transformations. In 1991, Chinese stage designers spent nine days travelling across Eurasia via international railways to participate in the Prague Quadrennial. Twenty-eight years later, China’s exhibition team undertook the same train journey and recorded it on video to display at the exhibition. The video screens in the exhibition enclose a passageway, which can be best explained by a quotation from Thich Nhat Hahn: "We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness." If the original journey halfway around the world was "elsewhere" in space, then the physical exhibits of historical documents about stage design in China and thirty artists’ mobile phones as contemporary documents are correspondingly "elsewhere" in time. China’s exhibitions at different locations are also designed as a whole based on the pattern of concentric circles to extend the space to a limitless "elsewhere", similar to the metaphor of the Golden Triga, helping to imagine the existence of a way of completeness.

The First Ukrainian National Exhibition at Prague Quadrennial centers on the works of five leading Ukrainian puppet theatre designers - women, Olesya Ishchuk, Inessa Kulchytska, Svitlana Prokofieva, Oksana Shariy, and Olha Voitkevych–Shevchenko. Even though they all work at resident repertory companies, their art represents a wide range of style and school, as well as most of the regions of the country. The exhibit also presents the activities of the newly launched Gallery of Scenography in Lviv, Western Ukraine, and of the Department of Architectural Space of Lviv Polytechnic University.

The starting point of the concept for Fluid Stages is an experience of the world as a scenographic landscape: as stage, as montage, as a series of scenes. By focusing one’s perception and sharpening the senses, the artworks included in the Finnish national exhibition enable a multisensory reading of various layers of existence. Fluid Stages consists of a site-sensitive exhibition inside the Industrial Palace and of seven independent performative artworks around Prague. The locations will be confirmed later. You will find more information about Fluid Stages in the Finnish exhibition catalogue. www.kokimo.fi Fluid Stages Performance By KOKIMO Location: Starting at ECR Finland, Industrial Palace, right wing. Performances: 8 June at 12.20 & 23.00 | 9 June at 12.20 & 18.45 | 10 June at 12.20 | 11 June at 18.45 | 12 June at 12.20 & 18.45 | 14 June at 12.20 | 15 June at 12.20 | 16 June at 12.20. Acts of Care By Milla Martikainen, Kati Raatikainen, Petra Vehviläinen, Eero Erkamo, Sofia Simola Location: Containall Park Stromovka, Prague 7 Opening times: FRIDAY 7 June at 5pm-9pm | SATURDAY 8 June at 3pm - 7pm | SUNDAY 9 June at 3pm - 7pm | WEDNESDAY 12 June at 4pm - 9pm | FRIDAY 14 June at 4pm - 9pm Note: Acts of Care is a creature that needs certain heat, rain & wind conditions to perform. Our performance dates & times vary according to the weather conditions in our location. Dates & times are confirmed at midday of each performance day according to the weather forecast. See the up to date info from the Acts of Care –Facebook event: Mindscapes Landscapes By Alexander Salvesen, Eero Nieminen, Karoliina Kauhanen, Katriina Tavi and Pinja Poropudas Location: Meeting point infront of Pražské creativni centrum, Staroměstské nám. 4/1 110 00 Staré Město. Performance will end on Strelecky Island, Prague 1 Seat reservation (8 persons / performance): https://mindscapeslandscapes.wordpress.com/tickets/ Performances 7.-9.6. Fri 7.6. and Sat 8.6 Starting times 3 pm and 5 pm Sun 9.6.2019 Starting time 3 pm No Doubt By Marja Uusitalo Location: Holešovická šachta, Bubenská 14, 170 00 Praha 7 Opening times: 6 – 16 June Tue-Fri at 4-10 pm, Sat 2-10 pm, sun 2-8 pm Suck My Chair By Siru Kosonen, Hannah Maria Ouramo and Markus Lindén Location: Holešovická šachta, Bubenská 14, 170 00 Praha 7 Opening times: 6 – 16 June Tue-Fri at 4-10 pm, Sat 2-10 pm, sun 2-8 pm Robot Loves: A Little Bit Closer By Laura Sariola and Veikko Sariola Location: Skautský institut na Staromáku Staroměstské nám. 4/1, 110 00 Prague 1 Opening times: 6 -16 June at 10am ¬- 6pm daily World Space By Kalle Rasinkangas Location: Skautský institut na Staromáku Staroměstské nám. 4/1, 110 00 Prague 1 Opening times: 6 - 16 June at 10am - 6pm daily (closed between 2-3 pm daily) Sonic Presence of an Absent Choreography by Anna Nykyri, Félix Blume and Veli Lehtovaara Location: Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU) / Dance Studio Karlova 26, 116 65 Staré Město, Prague 1 Opening times: 6 – 8 June. at 10-18 and 9 June. at 10-17

Laboratory of processes, which is oriented to the study of the memory of the creator against the ephemeral temporality of the work. An essay of the living material where the files are formulated through emotional spaces within the composition of the language, thus developing a conceptual archeology of the forensic: tools, systems or methodologies which generate a permanent relationship with the context, management schemes, production, and collective creation. The authors gathered in this pavilion perform an autopsy on the biographical body of our work, by dissecting the anatomy that derives from the processes themselves, by inspecting the remains of the design, by reinterpreting the collection of archives, aesthetics and discourses, through a necessary exploration on the worktable; it is a symbolic treatment from our different perspectives, a visual essay associated with the transformation of us from the complex structure of the scenic universe as a source of identity and changing reality. Producer: Carolina Jiménez

Placing the display of Canadian designers in the centre of an open, borderless and inviting space, the Canadian National Exhibition explores the relationship between a designer’s individuality and the collaborative nature of their work. Questions of personal identity within a broader social, political and cultural context, as well as subjects of equity, diversity and inclusiveness in our profession and beyond are raised. In a much broader sense, the Canadian National Exhibition is a meditation on the theme of transformation. Transformation of an artist within a collective, within society and within their country or state (in these times of global migration), and how a specific environment shapes an artist and their work. Could an artist’s individual voice change the cultural landscape that surrounds them? How malleable are our borders? The Canadian National Exhibition sees borders as points of connection, as well as separation. The exhibit also aims to examine the influence of modern technology on the development of the performing arts industry, with a special focus on the designer’s process, communication with others and performance design in general. For more information about programming in this exhibition, please visit: https://pq2019.designers.ca/north-american-cluster/ Anton De Groot, Paul Cegys

Infinite Dune is an installation piece approaching culture and design through a personal experience, while connecting with its surroundings. Outside, the existing world is mirrored back, but inside, a different vision is shown. An infinite dune, a shoreless desert, where one can observe collective solitude with other spectators. By putting their heads into the sand, they are experiencing defencelessness as their body is not in the same universe as their heads. The installation seems open and welcoming through the open space downstairs and the mirrored surfaces. In reality it is a closed and isolated being, with spectators completely not knowing what’s outside, and in fact ignoring the outside world like an ostrich digging its head into the sand, hiding from reality. Juli Balázs, András Juhász, Eszter Kálmán, Gábor Keresztes and Fruzsina Nagy are prominent designers of the Hungarian theatrical scene, in all disciplines: set, costume, video and sound design. They all have been working with each other separately for several years, but they team up for the first time to be part of the Prague Quadrennial.

It’s located at 120th-122nd meridian east and 22nd-25th parallel north. Although a long time ago, the sea didn’t exist. In front of you, on this vast open sea, there is an island. The island has had so many names. So many that I can’t recall any. Climate change is being mentioned time and again, but we wonder if the latest warning delivered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will easily fade into today’s information explosions, and whether Doomsday will come true in our times. Based on these, we’ve built an “AR path” to communicating with the world. The infinity of AR reflects that Taiwanese people always try to “shine brightly across borders.” It also reveals that, pitifully, Taiwan’s global status has remained obscure. The story told here at the Taiwan Exhibition is an admonishing one. Other than expressing concerns for the Earth’s future, it shows how technology has eroded modern life - when people become attached to technology, going virtual is inevitable. Beneath these hot topics, we sincerely hope that our messages can be well delivered to the audience - amidst waters and mists, Taiwan as a virtual existence in this world and “island of treasures” floats on and on.

Centuries ago, where concepts such as country, nation, and border did not exist, various wandering peoples shared adaptive community activities in order to perpetuate their existence, traditions, and culture. To settle in small towns, it was essential to observe and deeply analyze the natural environment. From whose characteristics, today we even talk about the invention of perpetual energy objects. Originated at almost 2000 meters high in the Andes, the underground rivers flow into the desert forming an irregular water table before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The invention of "Puquios" made life possible. A reverse helical mathematical form able to absorb the rampant air of the desert and that naturally propels the underground flow. Recent research describes a hierarchical society, but where all artifacts were shared indiscriminately by the entire community. "... Knowledge is transmitted in the form of myth, with the support of ritual and with material supports that serve to perform this ritual. ... the production of images and objects that we consider luxury today was not destined to increase the distance between the elite and the people ... It is a stratified and hierarchical society, but not a class society ... We must look for the parallels, the similarities, but also differences of other cultural universes. We have to find methodologies that allow us to understand the images, and also their archaeological contexts according to the concepts and rules with which they were conceived. In Nasca, the human dimension and the supernatural dimension are completely confused." Krzysztof Makowski (August, 2017) The Real and the Supernatural in the Paracas and Nasca Iconographies. "Kon", also known as "Being Oculated", represents for our cultures the origin of civilization. An invertebrate entity, cruel and punishing coming from the sea, which transformed the paradise into a desert and demanded bloody tributes to the inhabitants of its territory. The multiple representations in textiles, ceramics, and geoglyphs show us this unique cosmovision in South America, where the supernatural was part of all community activity. Kon was his creator and benefactor god.

We are very proud of our first participation in Prague Quadrennial 2019. Through this exhibition,we present four theatrical models of classical plays, through metaphoric way of thinking to reach a unique conceptual design of each play.

Made in Austria. Can we claim that there is Austrian art and design? What other influences make Austrian art? How many non-Austrian influences are there, in the production, in the generation of ideas, in the implementation? In the current political context reinforcing borders with walls has almost become acceptable. Nationalistic ideology – sometimes in disguise – spreads all over Europe. At the same time our survival is more dependent on collaboration with other countries than ever, from petrol to food to our favourite gadgets – it has all become global. So has art and cultural production. So have our lives. Austria, being in the centre of Europe, has a long history of multi-ethnic conviviality. The borders have changed and so have those of the countries around Austria. Two states became one (Germany) one country became two (Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Yugoslavia split into even more parts. Regions want to be separated (Catalonia), people speak different languages in the same country and many of us have travelled or lived in other countries. Europe is changing. All the time. Looking at all those movements and changes, we wonder why we can’t get over the national states. What happened to the idea of a united multiethnic Europe? Can we not value and respect each our traditions and cultures without always pointing to the black sheep and use their trespassing or abuse of the system as an excuse for not finding better solutions? This exhibition includes an additional installation/performance in the Prague Exhibition Grounds. Writers: Christine Frei, Martin Fritz; Graphics and Design: vs.designlab | stories without words, www.vsdesignlab.com; Special thanks to: Iroler Landestheater, Innsbruck, Austria; especially to technical director Richard Gassel, production coordinator Alexander Egger and the workshops for their support. Manuela Geisler, Nina Alexandra Stillmark and Bethany Hart for the assembly, Kurt Ties and Peter Reider from HTE GmbH for the transport and assembly, Waltraud Strommer for all her efforts and support, Filippo Bassi for his support, Markus Gatt for the plinths, Diana Petrowicz, Miriam Aistleitner and Simona Rybáková for press, copy-writing and translation support, Leona Zajíčková for the quick prints.

With what is sometimes considered an ‘ecosophic’ theatre, I explore through my installations and performances the relationship between man and nature, a theatre-as-lab-assistant that puts the spectator in the role of observer in front of a foreseen staging turned terrarium. A universe that brings together human and animal, daydream and material, sounds and words, the solitary and the group. Indelibly fed by the visual arts, my shows are indivisible from their scenography, which is an integral element of the writing and scoring process. They are born from thinking of landscapes and imagining micro-worlds into which I can plunge the actors — spaces in which tiny communities must make up lives for themselves in any possible circumstance. Constructed from various tableaux vivants— from the snowy forest of Mélancolie des Dragons, to the bogs of Swamp Club all the way through the caverns in La Nuit des taupes — these shows have been dreamt up for the past fifteen years and have travelled the globe. Once more, for this pavilion, it is the landscape that will act as my guide. A dream space around the theme of the deserted island will be the source of inspiration for this next adventure. I imagine an immersive installation-diorama, one that propels the visitors into the experience of life within an insular microcosm, a kind of imaginary, utopic or dystopic society. Philippe Quesne Curator, Artist Dramaturg and Director of Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national

Minor Monsters is proposed as a miniature Natural History Museum dedicated to a rare class of animals: Chilean stage designers. We have transformed the seminal figures of our discipline into particular creatures: hybrids inspired in the artists' obsessions and their body of work. Through exhibits such as handcrafted fake taxidermies and scientific-like illustrations, the installation operates as a tour of the rich fauna that make up the theatre and performance design scene in Chile. We have collected more than forty “monsters”, created from costume, lighting, scenography, and integral designers. These creatures represent the huge variety of visual and technical languages that exist in Chilean theatre today. Through a human size phylogenetic tree, we show how all these species are interconnected, evolving from and responding to previous generations of artists. To complete the experience of the installation, visitors can access our audio-guides, that will give them more information about these animals as well as their imaginary sounds and voices. Minor Monsters is a theatre bestiary that is at the same time an homage to our fellow colleagues and a plattform to show their amazing and inspiring work. We strongly believe that Chilean stage designers are a fascinating species that should be known and studied around the Globe.

"Puppet theatre has parallels to what is called "visual theatre". The pioneers of visual theatre, like Loïe Füller, Oskar Schlemmer, Tadeusz Kantor, Achim Freyer, and Robert Wilson did what puppet theatre creators had been doing for hundreds of years – letting the physical matters be the main deliverer of premises for the performance and letting the visual dramaturgy be of upmost importance. Puppet theatre is object based. It is the puppet bodies, the costumes, the set design, the light, and the technique that unfold their potential. Out of the matter emerge images from a hidden side of humanity, heavenly visions, nightmares, and glimpses of possible futures. The analogue character puppet theatre offers something exclusive in an increasingly digital world. In our time, puppet theatre is barely present in Norwegian theatres. There is no education and only three Norwegian theatres offer puppet theatre experiences on a regular basis. With this backdrop, we would like to recognize the innovative, diverse, and vitally expressive works of the three companies. Wakka Wakka, Plexus Polaire, and Theater Corpus. Their performances visualize the immaterial and matters that are difficult to address in theatre. They also use untraditional starting points for their work and develop distinct visual universes. Wakka Wakka is led by Gabrielle Brechner, Kirjan Waage and Gwendolyn Warnock and was established in 2001. Based in Oslo and New York, Wakka Wakka pushes the boundaries of the imagination by creating works that are bold, unique and unpredictable. https://wakkawakka.org Plexus Polaire is led by Yngvild Asplid and had its first performance in 2011. The company is based in Norway and France. Contemporary literature inspires their performances, that are visual experiences with music, video and a virtuous co-performing between figure and actor. http://www.plexuspolaire.com Theater Corpus was started by Tormod Lindgren. With 25 years of experience as a scenographer, he created the first performance of Theater Corpus company around a play by the painter Edvard Munch. A distinct visual world is essential for the company. https://www.theatercorpus.com This exhibition features work from different phases of creating puppet theatre performances. We suggest a greenhouse for better growth conditions for puppetry in Norway!

Why should theatre be confined to proscenium? Why do we need "walls" around us? The walls, whether physically around us or metaphorically in our minds, restrict movement, development and therefore the progression. The walls of the auditorium, the walls of scenic constructions, the walls of an actor’s race and ethnicity, and the walls in audience’s percption. India has approached the exhibition keeping in mind the "free-spirit" of theatre strengthening from its own Classical Indian Theatre tradition, where the performing space Natyamandap, is a free-space which varied in shape and sizes, but similar in design. It provides a kinetic space for actors to imagine and projects keeping in view the total personality of the actor, including his costumes, make-up, and the properties as part of their art of acting. The changes, activities, and even objects of the natural world are expressed through gestural language of the actor, who imagine it first and then transform to audiences to let their own memories arouse and trigger. In the Sanskrit acting tradition, there is no attempt to simulate reality or to look real, but to show or suggest reality. "The Sanskrit theatre considers stage presentation not an imitation of reality, but its recreation with a special objective, in which the external and the internal, the visible and the invisible, the expressed and the inherent, the direct and the indirect, the sensuous and the abstract, the worldly and the supernatural — all the levels and forms are included."

A open space of possibilities and potential, a space where performance may form, inhabit, emerge and begin. Influenced by Maori and Pacific waka the exhibition will perform as a vehicle and platform for interaction, negotiation and display. A vehicle of transformation, moving and shifting in form and nature between audio-visual media vessel, performance platform, space of dialogue.

If performative strategies are constantly enacted by states to sustain their power structures, we also see an increasing number of resistance actions being deployed by grassroots movements that rely on alternative performances of spaces and bodies, and which become able to inspire and challenge stage design. Prospective Actions (Catalonia 2004-2018) is a participative multimedia installation that approaches this question ahead of six social conflicts that took place in Catalonia in the last 15 years, and which showcase a strong tension between police control and the opening up of new forms to use and produce public space. We invited six Catalan scenographers who started working in the nineties to help us think about these conflicts, as well as about the position of arts in front of political struggles and the interweavings between studio and street. A big round table becomes a board game, a stage for potential actions and a meeting point between two generations, separated by the breakout of the financial crisis and its impact on life, working conditions, and worldviews.

“Poetry creates a field of analogies that teaches to resonate with beings and things connected with life. Poetry is heard when words are silent. Subjective reality is multiple, it opens up a field of possibilities to explore and create.” extract from Journal imaginaire, Raoul Vaneigem, 2006 The installation RIEN N’EST FINI TOUT COMMENCE* is the fruit of our meeting with the Belgian philosopher Raoul Vaneigem whose thought invites us to stimulate our imagination through poetic and unusual situations.  It is a meditation on our world at the frontier of a mutation. I.            RIEN N’EST FINI** /// A Zone, in the form of a calcined forest with slender trunks is to be crossed, scattered among the stands of other countries. It transforms, opens its scope to all sorts of universes that sometimes seem to tend to absorb it whole and then regenerate it. For the forest the place of all metamorphoses and apparitions, fears and consolations, meditations and promises... This course is an invitation to cross the frontiers of the imaginary towards our subjective visions. II.              TOUT COMMENCE*** /// A Room, black surface and worn by fire, deposited among debris related to our job as scenographer, traces of its ephemeral essence, its so fast obsolescence. Inside, the white walls contrast, in the center, a table covered with a miniature forest, intact. Because on the ashes always reborn a hope.   * Nothing is finished everything begins ** Nothing is finished *** everything begins

Thai people may not doubt upon hearing the phrase "Same Same But Different". "Yeah…it’s the same thing. But it’s also different". We try so many times to explain the difference but sometimes we cannot explain how it is different nor define it. It is the awkwardness of the addresser and the addressee, especially foreigners’ ambiguity mixed with hilarity. Any visitor to Thailand may be familiar with the phrase "Same same but different" from a conversation, be it at a restaurant, flea market, in a shop, or on a street. What is special about "Same same but different" is that Thai people can apply it in almost every context of communications: politics, relationship, education, entertainment, and even in daily life. This phrase may sound so connected to the Thai people because of its manner of speaking, ambiguousness, indecisiveness, and considerate tone. Though this phrase cannot show the limitation of a language and an expression of opinion, it can be related to the design of expression, suggesting that in essence Thai people are all the same, yet so different. Same Same but Different focuses on Life Matter by communicating Thai people’s attitude towards society, art, culture, and belief through the eyes of theatre practitioners, artists, designers, and art enthusiasts together with communities, interpreting events or aspects in everyday life that drive a society, encourage a smile, or raise a topic that makes an artist question the past, present and future. When life is a collective experience and performing art is an art that concerns other people’s problem, shared space installation is a form of exhibition in Thailand that explores human and space by a sharing of space between artists and designers, reflecting their views towards events in Thailand and its people’s trends. Exhibition viewers are invited to share their experience through this shared space.

SASAGERU - in Japanese - is the action to express our dedication and devotion for others. Theatrical arts, including scenography and performances, always start with such an action - to present something to something (someone). We are surrounded by boundaries regardless of our wishes. The action, SASAGERU, has been one of the ways for people to meet others in the world with overwhelming social, cultural and national borders. We focus on the action SASAGERU as a beginning, and think of what we can do to cross over the borders between us.

This proposal considers the singular geographic location of Costa Rica as generator of behaviors and instigator of idiosyncrasies. This thesis acts as lens which observes a verdant territory, graded in a multiplicity of greens, a confine of spatiality, in between the confluence of worlds, a canal and container of diversity. It is found at the border of two oceans, it is flux, crossing and bridge between continents, between seas. This territory is poised as limit, of civilizations in pre-Hispanic times, of viceroyalties during the Colony; as geographic demarcation of continental masses and confluence of different forms of biological life in transit through the continent: human, animal, plant, from North to South and vice versa. Finally, it serves as threshold of tropical climates, a place shifting between the humid and the dry. It is a place through which we pass, maybe we’ll continue on, surely we’ll leave something behind, likely we’ll take something with us. It is also the place were we stay, live, establish community with the others who remained, or maybe guide, those who are in transit. Frontier, limit, border, bridge, passageway, place. A place of multiple togethers. This exhibition includes additional performances or events: 06 – 16 06 2019 15:30 Gabriel Mejías, Gina Ortega, Rebeca Woodbridge

Wash the pain away. SELF opens a pop us store in Prague. Visit us here here and become part of this unique experience. In this concept-store one single product is being presented - SELF Human Soap. SELF is made from people for people: human fat is collected from cosmetic surgery and processed into soap. Through a process of upcycling waste material (human fat), new value is created and a sustainable product is brought into life. The profit of the soap sales directly contributes to financing a drinking-water project in the Democrtic Republic of the Congo. Human fat saves lives. Pure water – pure transformation. SELF is a performance-installation in the form of a contemporary concept-store. Artist Julian Hetzel proposes “guilt” as an untapped resource and introduces a visionary system of value creation through transformation. SELF Human Soap Řezáčovo námesti 2, 170 00 Praha 7-Holešovice Google maps link: https://goo.gl/maps/UiM1mpaHbS2m4USw5 www.humansoap.com --- By selecting SELF, curator Platform-Scenography demonstrates how scenography, design, visual arts and performance are often seamlessly blend in contemporary art practices in the Netherlands. It shines light on a form of scenography that appropriates forms of existing structures outside of the theatre, in order to question these critically. SELF is a layered experience that provokes strong reactions. The scenography of SELF challenges the viewer to position himself in relation to the questions that this space, a soap concept-store, seems to pose. The premise that guilt can be converted into capital, is as convincing as it is disrupting.

In Bert Neumann’s final work at the Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, the words NO SERVICE were hung above a room in which the separation between stage and audience had been completely abolished. For the entirety of the 2015-17 seasons, Neumann transformed the theatre into a streetscape, replacing the rows of seats with asphalt that slanted upwards to the upper foyer. This redefined space, surrounded by glittering black Niagara tinsel, is indicative of his working methods: Neumann transformed mobile, temporary or even entire spatial architectures into open systems enlivened by actors, directors, prompters, camera operators, dressers, technicians, and audiences alike. The spatial setting of being both inside and outside at the same time constantly challenged the routine of the theatre. Through his frequent use of everyday materials from pop culture such as tinsel, plastic chairs, or awnings, Neumann sought to develop a recognisable and memorable aesthetic: The Hate & Love wagons tell a long story as part of the fairground, and as part of public life. Originally old worn-out circus wagons, they were restored in the Volksbühne’s workshop, where Neumann redesigned them and later took them on tour for René Pollesch’s Tal der Fliegenden Messer as part of the Ruhrtriologie. They were simultaneously wardrobes, tea kitchens, sleeping quarters and stages for video broadcasts. In 2018, they were acquired by the Bert Neumann Association. Working with Neumann’s estate means using references from a repertoire of concrete materials and mobile formats that not only constitute working methods but which should also continue their discursive intervention in theory and practice. Hanging materials have been a common thread in Neumann’s artistic work since the 2000s. Often painted red and white, or sometimes black and white, these allowed for the creation of non-static theatrical spaces that could quickly and easily be transformed into something else. Behind Neumann’s aesthetic choices lies an attitude that he also believed constituted a common ground for the kind of collaboration that asserts the sovereignty of the individual (i.e. of actors, stage builders and artists, etc.): "One should not act on behalf of others, but on behalf of oneself."

Flying House is an arts organization dedicated to designing spaces in which innovation and creativity can flourish sustainably. Shutterspeed: reflection/deflection showcases the best of South African indie performance designers, scenographers, and theatre makers’ work. We sought out designs that were innovative, resourceful, and cutting edge – where budget was a constraint but magic was made nonetheless. Prompted by the notions of reflection, deflection, framing, exposing, and capturing, the curators imagined a shifting and transforming landscape – an installation comprised of the reflective panels that photographers use to enhance or modify lighting conditions. The metaphor this material offers us is that of reflecting and deflecting light in order to capture an image. In our daily encounters with our selves, our others, and our othered selves, we experience elusive moments of slippage where meaning flounders on predicated intent and imagined connection or missed connection. Did we say what we meant to say? Like photography, theatre design is about fixing fluid reality into an image in time and space, to impose a frame on multiple possibilities. What is reflected and what is deflected when the shutter snaps, when we make the choices we do for performance? How do we view each other, and how do those views act as filters, mirrors, or windows? Do these reflectors help us see better, or do they help us to look away? What types of spaces do we build around us? From gated communities to laagers, mine shafts to sky scrapers to temporary dwellings, the spaces we traverse say so much about who we are.

The installation Sliding Into the Unknown showcases selected multimedia designs by Croatian visual artist and scenographer Ivan Marušić Klif, most notably in the context of theatre performances from the past few years. Informed both by his individual artistic practice and by the collective creative dynamics of performing arts, Klif’s theatrical work is about transforming the spatial and temporal frameworks of performance space through the use of layers of digital and analogue imagery. He is not interested in creating a seamless theatrical illusion in which one space mimics another, he makes it an active factor of the performance by shaping it as a vibrant, kinetic extension of the performers’ bodies and actions. By using static and moving video projections, oscilloscopes operated via custom-made software and all sorts of other techniques, he turns the performance space into something like a musical instrument. We are not using this “music” metaphor lightly. In the theatrical context, Klif mostly acts as an active member of creative collectives, not in the distinctive role of a stage designer. In his work with artists such as Zlatko Burić Kićo, Damir Bartol Indoš & Tanja Vrvilo, Branko Brezovec and Ana Hušman, his approach is based on the synergy with the rest of the team which conceives and stages the performance. Klif operates his technical instruments live, in synchrony with the other performers, like a band member. Collages of all sorts of digital imagery, oscilloscope lights, the performers’ voices, shadows and movement, the textures of physical space — all create a sense of wonder and performances so extremely dense which could at any moment slide into the unknown. Presenting performance design in an exhibition context is always a challenge. This exhibition addresses that challenge by proposing a “black box” with inner and outer content complementing one another. The screens on the exterior walls present the video interviews and visual documentation on the selected performances, projects and collaborations, specifically addressing the creative processes as well as the role and nature of Klif’s media interventions within them. The installation interior presents an audiovisual spectacle designed from reappropriated multimedia elements from the performances presented on the outside, developing through time, reconfiguring and creating new experiences for the viewer. Just as all of Klif’s work in the context of theatre performances strictly responds to specific creative tasks and technical givens, this installation finds him, again, adapting them to the new conceptual and physical environment of the PQ.

In Scene Work Ahead the notion of scene design is used as a tool to analyse cultural policies of Yugoslavia and Serbia that have shaped – designed the conditions in which artistic practices exist(ed) and develop(ed). A series of emblematic historical events, political decisions and practices are chosen through extensive research and turned into artistic materials that make up the exhibition. Speaking from the position of precarity that can be seen as a universal and unifying condition of work and life, but also open a new space of struggle, Scene Work Ahead, through tools of scene design and performance, focuses, deconstructs, and materialises two concepts of production: state cultural institutions and self-organised artistic scene embedded in periods of socialism and restoration of capitalism. (Scene Work Ahead, authors) Milutin Dapčević, Mirjana Dragosavljević, Dušica Dražić, Selena Orb, Vladimir Pejković, Katarina Popović, Igor Vasiljev and Tanja Šljivar (A View of the Stage) Mia David, Borderline Beauty (Izvanredni Bob, Stevan Bodroža, Goran Milenković, Željko Maksimović, Tamara Pjević and Petar Mirković), Nikola Isaković, The Applause Institute (Stevan Beljić, Luka Cvetković, Stefan Knežević, Katarina Kostandinović, Milan Nasković, Kristina Nikolić, Jakov Ponjavić, Dušan Savić, Vanja Seferović, Tamara Spalajković), Jelena Janković, Karkatag Collective, Marko Milić, group of authors (Sonja Jankov, Đina Prnjat, Janž Ormezu and Nemanja Mitrović), Sofija Mitrović, Igor Koruga and Maja Pelević, Zorana Petrov, Jovana Rakić, Aleksandar Ramadanović, Andreja Rondović, Branislava Stefanović, Veljko Stojanović, Urbanium – centre for research and sustainable development in architecture and urban planning (Natalija Bogdanović, Marija Simović, Aleksa Đurić, Petar Simović, Tihomir Dičić, Fedor Jurić, Bogdan Đokić, Ana Zorić, Miloš Kostić, Desirée Tilinger, Jovana Vidaković), Srđan Veljović, Marta Popivoda and Ana Vujanović, Nikola Zavišić.

We invent imaginary worlds and extraordinary environments in the staging places we call theatres and in the ones we don’t. The borders of where our work appears are porous and the hierarchies of our sector are dissolving. We build the content. We tell the stories that sell the tickets. We make the memories. In a diverse, multi-cultural visual age, we are the storytellers now... Staging Places Studio is an open invitation to join the Society of British Theatre Designers' (SBTD) intergenerational community of practitioners in a live, open space as we show, discuss, and celebrate the value and diversity of performance design made in towns, cities, villages, rural and remote communities in the UK and around the world. www.stagingplaces.co.uk Throughout PQ, our Staging Places Studio will operate in direct dialogue with The Future Utopias Imaginarium, the exhibit created by our dynamic student and early career curatorial team.

Cyprus Theatre Organisation (THOC) presents the National Participation of Cyprus in PQ: A large-scale installation by Artists Elena Kotasvili and Alexis Vayianos, curated by Dramaturg Marina Maleni. As arts writer Maria Petridou notes: Status Quo in Mirage creates a situation in which visitors engage silently (or not) with structures of power, as these are observed by viewers through a distancing glass. A hefty table reserved for the meetings of those in power acts almost as a centerpiece of the setting, only it is moved by an unending wave whose flux is undefined and whose contourless animation washes against the threshold of operation and authority. Status Quo in Mirage draws us into a fleeting or reflective moment in which to encounter matters related to participation, democracy, citizenship, the value of choice in an age of crises, but also issues that relate to affectivity, affinity, the environment, other lives that matter, processes of making waves. Decisions are made behind solid doors, where sound is insulated, voices are muffled, bodies are made unviewable. Sight is negotiable and variable depending on your position of viewing. The inside seems protected, split from whatever is and whoever is outside, but the stream of opinion, an unfolding and growing muscle, sees through a distancing glass and seizes the momentum that could upset the structure of the state in which we are. Dense modes of bureaucracy are fluidly layered into captivating visions of nuanced colours, textures of water mass, and tone; flooding over the transitory inhabitants of the installation, the aura affects them, possibly, by bringing them directly into a confrontation with the oppression of the current state. By constructing a social and spatial relationship to this monster in the room, the artists present a condition where the rippling of the order of things or an inevitable dismantling of the purview of the status in quo, is possible. Elena Kotasvili, Alexis Vayianos

The Slovak exhibition The Absence of Miracles Exhausts Us balances on the edge of installation and performance and is inspired by the Bátovce-based Pôtoň Theatre’s project Miracles (2017). It has allowed a unique interconnection of four ensembles (Pôtoň Theatre, Debris Company, the Honey and Dust group and Sláva Daubnerová) and allowed for their common performance done at night in the countryside around a Central Slovakian village, drawing on the tradition of intense conceptual action art of the 1960s. The essence of this tradition was an attempt to delineate what personal freedom meant in society, history, urban space, open country. Additional program 9. 6. / 19:30 / NoD Untitled - Sláva Daubrnerová Sláva Daubnerová’s project Untitled, based on the work of American photographer Francesca Woodman´s won the 2013 DOSKY award for Best Performance of the Season and she was nominated in the Best Actress and Best Direction of the Season categories. It toured abroad extensively. 8. 6. / 19:30 / Studio Alta Uninteresting scream - Honey and Dust Free art association of authors, artists and performers in visual art, theatre and music who created joint works that balance on the edge of performance, theatre production, concert and installation. Their work has been presented in theatres, galleries and concert stages. 10. 6. / 19:30 / Studio Alta WOW - Debris Company Bratislava A visually strong production using the essence of the creation of life and its regularities. Two characters – a man and a woman – embody the two poles of one world, where the rules applied are made and adjusted by the people themselves. Journey through the country at night that makes visions, dreams, unknown emotions and thoughts possible when the boundaries between reality and fantasy disappear for a while. The exhibition hall offers a moment of peace, meditation and silence – it is important to open ourselves to the unexpected – to coincidences, meetings, dialogue, collisions. The basic exhibition motif is a tent and its associations – from provisional human dwellings used by nomads, the homeless, immigrants, all the way to leisure activities. The tent is also a manifestation of disagreement, annexations of a public space for individual protest and resistance.

The Brazilian Exhibition of Countries and Regions at PQ 2019, could not stand otherwise but as a political manifesto at the global multi-view stage of PQ, highlighting the recent issues in the country. It reflects the worldwide migratory conflicts and the local state of apprehension and uncertainty in regard to the current political leaders' propositions, impelling to the devastation of the country, above all, endangering the environment and human rights; also dismissing the subjectivity of Art. In this context, the exhibition approaches territoriality and borders as substantial issues, drawing attention to individual’s space in the geographical, political, cultural and social world. Emphasizes human’s existence, as the centre of the conflict, and its risks. Expresses urgent issues related to identity, xenophobia, harassment, censorship, prejudice, intolerance. Points to the battle between immobility and the urgency of fighting for our existence in this scenario. To do so, curator’s proposal presents two layers: the ARCHIVE of selected artists' recent productions, and the INTERSECTIONS between individuals, territories and boundaries – a series of artistic residence projects developed during 2018 - to produce new performances in the context of site-specific and its transposition to neutral spaces, exploring the power of non-textual narratives as instruments to face censorship. Working between reality and fiction - that Theatre and Performance allows to explore - the curatorial and design exhibition concepts are combined, staging space and design for performance as exhibition – performance – installation, to present THE BODY AS SPACE, TERRITORY AND ITS BORDERS. BODY as provocative presence, breaking barriers, re-configuring BORDERS; seeking for TRANSFORMATION; BODY to challenge and to subvert control attempts; BODY as a strong instrument of resistance, existence and creation; BORDERS as meeting points inviting to perceive identity, empathy and to share a critical view of the world; BODY as SPACE, a place to exist. This exhibition includes additional performances or events: 06 – 16 06 2019 10:30, 15:30 08 06 2019 17:15, 23:15

In 2015, the Australian exhibition considered the results, implications, and evidence of action by the masses and featured works where differing senses of accumulation were core. For 2019 we are taking a different tack. Rather than works that are energised by drawing numerous individuals into a single dream, this year we focus on individuals that radiate outward. Performers who largely stand alone on stage while their created worlds revolve around them. The solo performer. The one who stands vulnerable but fearless. A nucleus that the event unfolds around, or so it would seem. In fact (and of course) it takes a village. Our four key works, CARRION, REPATRIATE, THE RAPTURE, and THE SECOND WOMAN, have performance artists who demonstrate courage and staggering originality smack in their centres. Through putting their own person as the crux of the work they are able to embed a politic and communicate it in a quintessentially individual way. In quite different ways each also works their physicality in concert with the inanimate to achieve an integrated form. In these works costume, mask, and physical space are not an exterior facade. It is only through collaboration with a village of other artists, designers, and composers that the performance becomes. In a media landscape that loves to celebrate the individual we respond to PQ’s stimulus “that we are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness”. (Thich Nhat Hahn). Alongside these successful works our we are also exploring the impossible work of successful artists. We have invited in the ideas that never got off the ground. Those projects that were imagined but never became more than a sketch, an outline or a model. The ambitions that were too expensive, too impractical. The ones that landed in the wrong time or place. Or on deaf ears. We plan to simultaneously celebrate what has been achieved, while speculating upon what could have been. This exhibition includes additional performances or events: 06 – 09 06 2019 11:45, 16:00 12 06 2019 6:00 CARRION, Justin Shoulder, Matthew Stegh, Corin Ileto, Victoria Hunt, Ben Cisterne, Bob Scott, Jason Cross, REPATRIATE, Latai Taumoepeau, Elias Nohra, Bec Stegh, James Brown, THE SECOND WOMAN, Nat Randal, Anna Breckon, EO Gill, Future Method Studio, Amber Silk, Nina Buchanan, Sophie Roberts, Zhu Zhi-Ying, A-Wing Hsu, THE RAPTURE, Moira Finucane, Jackie Smith, Shinjuku Thief, Eleanor Nalyirrima Dixon, Jennifer Hector, William Eicholtz, Catherine Lane, Josh Weeks, Arts Project Aust Paul Matthews, Clare Britton, Chloe Greaves, Imogen Ross, Tamara Harrison

Arab culture remains one of the oldest surviving cultures in the world, with a long and dynamic history that stretches across a colorful variety of lands. It’s important to note that while there are elements that have remained strong after thousands of years, culture as a whole will always change to adapt to its times and societies; as has Arab culture. And now this culture is taking a new leap into the future, where art is the sound of poetry, and music is the manifestations of literature.

What is left from the Theater are legendary memories and sometimes forgotten, random objects that evoke missing performances. These are reunited here to rebuild the universe of Romanian scenographer Dragoş Buhagiar. Particulary chosen fragments and testimonies reveal the identity of the artist and allows us a glimpse to the relationship between scenic fiction and the imaginary persistence of the ruins.

The Georgian National Pavilion unites different generations of Georgian scenographers/directors and demonstrates the transformation of goals and objectives of theatrical art and stage design. It is a territory where a variety of spatial interpretations is presented through metamorphoses and movement, with the inner aspiration to unlock circles and overcome boundaries. The Pavilion showcases the documentation of the theatrical practice based on the principle of dialogism – a practice characterized by a wide range of reflections on the nature and opportunities. The subjects of the dialogue carry different - local or global - identities, from the global paradigm to various subcultural, gender groups. The documented contemporary history is part of this “dialogue”… The theatre serves as a universal medium that must reproduce this complex process, identify the problem and help parties to the dialogue restore identity through communication, “create” common new knowledge. The Pavilion’s artistic space typifies this active theatrical process comprised of passions, desires, thoughts, values, aspirations, and hopes. It is a territory where new visions appear again and again, where personalities are renewed. It is a fascinating story of art and liberation of life, a way to the new “ego” through re-interpretation of the past and reflection on the present. This exhibition includes additional performances or events: 06 – 15 06 2019 10:30, 12:20, 14:15, 18:00, 18:45 16 06 2019 10:30, 12:20, 14:15

Freedom, unlimited freedom, this is the future that inevitably awaits us. A theatre is a special place, where anyone can express themselves in any possible and impossible way, where there are no taboos, where all secrets are being revealed, and all manifestations of living beings are present. Theatre without borders and without rules, without shame and deceit. Theatre as a domain and agony, where there is no viewer, no actors, and no director, but instead a naive existence, a desire for creativity, an incurable disease. The installation Theatre of a Madman is dedicated to Oleg Karavaychuk (1927-2016), the infamous composer, conductor and pianist, who had a remarkable influence on Shishkin-Hokusai (the artist behind the concept of the installation). As an improvisational musician Oleg Karavaychuk has composed music for many theatre performances and films, which included his own version of music for Sergei Eisenstein's legendary film of Battleship Potemkin. Oleg Karavaychuk was an iconic figure for the entire city of St. Petersburg: an officially recognized great composer was in fact like a big kid. His creative self and his active involvement in film bordered on the desire to abandon everything, have solitude that would be similar to madness,.. an escape into the woods.

Erasing, hiding, or ignoring the traces of collectivity, solidarity, responsibility from the collective memory of the local history is nothing but a step towards accelerating the neoliberal worldview, which privatizes and hierarchizes all relationships in social life. This leads to an almost unrecognizable change in the local context, influencing and transforming entire communities and different social strata. In the middle of the common yard and the common cinema of the Railway Residential Building, completed in the late 1940s, a question resonates: "How to live better together?" And, it is increasingly echoing in the almost ruined building, treasuring the ideas of community, responsibility, and solidarity, in the middle of the captured, ruined, and corrupted city. It is here that existent conflicts can open up potential ruptures for the change of the general social structure. The initiative "If Buildings Could Talk" is a performative experience existing since 2015 in the Railway Residential Building, being activated by the organization Faculty of Things That Can’t Be Learned (FR~U). It develops itself by performing, i.e. it performs an active space as an aesthetic and ethical process of creating relations and bonds. Thus, the performance design is not a physically built scenery, although it exists in a concrete building and a cinema, but it is an experiential and emotional modeling by an artistic process, formative and transformative, striving to become a caring community that will act beyond its own threshold. It carries a contemporary cross-disciplinary engaged approach that unites elements of visual and performing arts, extending their scope and framing, and advocating for the preservation of the meaning of the public and the public space. The pavilion This Building Truly Talks in Prague performs in size 1: 100, as a condensed experience of past activities, as a multi-time archive, which will tell us, in live, if we make it here, we can make it anywhere! And this is exactly the design of the performative agonistic community. Performance: 12 06 2019 13:00

“Utopian Fashion” is an anthropological research about human-costume relations, how costume creates a new “Utopian Fashion” is a theatrical spectacle aimed at looking at the far future of humanity through the perspective of a costume: Costume is a tool that predicts human personality, the role that the human takes over, which often converging in his personality becomes an inseparable part of his core essence. Where costume is no longer an external decoration, it is the “icon” of humankind. Costume is functional; it is more productive communications system. Putting on a certain costume we put into action the script or the ritual, that we have programmed. Putting on bridal gowns, we put into practice the wedding mechanism with its scripts and rituals. Putting on jeans and a t-shirt we put into action the script of liberty, equality and democratical rituals. What script and rituals does these costumes predicting the future put into practice? The main motive is the world of human and nature, flora and fauna. Human creates himself and can transform himself to another human. But in “Utopia” the possibility of that transformation extends infinitely: the human can become a part of flora, as in Arcimboldo’s fantasies or communicate with fauna as in totem and animist religions. For instance military costume proves its owners war abilities, clergy - spiritual services. Here the costume is close to shaman costumes, as human rediscovers the ability to communicate with the spirits of nature in its “Utopia”. How will this costume influence human behaviour? Whether wearing this costume human will return to his humanistic worldview and harmony, or denying his existing body and putting himself into a new natural and animal body, he will pay tribute to animal instincts. Or maybe, liberating himself from conscious and moral principles, but preserving human’s genetic features, a transformation of an entirely new human being will be born who will challenge the nature by making it accept him as the newest human kind. “Utopian Fashion” synthesizes sensory perceptions. These breathing costumes give opportunity to the audience to experiment by mentally wearing them and creating their own utopia. Arshak Sarkissian, Lia Mkhitaryan, Lilit Stepanian, Vardan Jaloyan

“A virgin is a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth. In traditional European folklore, virgins are said to be the only ones capable of subduing a unicorn. They can also walk through swarms of bees without getting stung, stare into the sun without coming to harm, and restore the flame of an extinguished candle. The virgin's blood is a magical substance with the power to heal and bring happiness.” For PQ2019 Denmark is bringing this magical creature - a real virgin born in 1987. With his own personal – and true – background as a 31 year old virgin, set designer Julian Juhlin places his own body in the center of a scenography he designed to praise and exhibit this pure creature who possess incredible powers. 2019 will be the fortunate year where the whole world gets the incredible opportunity to watch this magical figure up close! The curators on the choice of selecting "Virgin" for the Prague Quadrennial 2019: In 2017 Juhlin toured Denmark with his “Virgin Tour” and placed his strange, fragile virgin-figure on display in the streets in big and small cities all over the country – parking lots, malls, and desolated countrysides got a visit from him in his box of glass. Our choice of presenting Denmark for Prague Quadrennial fell on this project for its ability to take the tabu of virginity in a late age – and with humor and beautiful aesthetics - turn it upside down – and put it on show everywhere. The virginity represents something you don´t do. In an ever-changing world where people are constantly forced to develop, Juhlin tries to stop time and stop developing - at least for the duration of the performance. This exhibition includes additional performances or events: 06 - 16 06 2019 14:00

The installation consists of spatial forms that are wrapped into the corporality of a book triptych. It creates a space of reading (the surface) or leafing (the volume). A close- up of moving images from the performances unrolls on the white surfaces of book leaves: the need to leaf through the book enables the viewer to touch the invisible matter of the imagination. Simultaneously, one touches the reflection on the recent past and of the imaginarium of the performance. Tactility and the repetitive gesture of meditatively leafing through the sheets replaces the seduction of our gaze, bending it into contemplation. At the same time the so-called inner world is turned inside out, as the medium of the message in a book, carrying the visible field of the magic world of the performance. In this way the semi-distant absence of visual elements of the performance is enacting the ephemerality of theatre. A mere document (a museum artefact) is actually a manifestation of how a certain curved space of the subconscious binds new meanings. When we read a book in its simple form of bound pages, we get immersed – “Absorption dissolves the object/subject relation set up by theatricality’s distancing effect”, by seeking “the creation of a new sort of object – the fully realized tableau – and the construction of a new sort of beholder – a new ‘subject’ – whose innermost nature would consist precisely in the conviction of his absence from the scene of representation.” (M. Fried, Absorption and Theatricality, p.104) The bound white leaves in front of us form a suspension. It is as if there was a pause before we say something that matters to us, or as though there were a caesura in music, or a silence on stage. The books could be a ready-made but they are not: they also present us with our memory and our fondness for stories. Let’s say that the three books function as a cinema screen or a horizon, leading us into the depth of a painting. A set design or a pattern on fabric; a veil covering the body; a drapery with reminiscences of Dürer; abstract sculptures of the spilled colors of the performance body, all in one. These moments from the theatre performances trans- form our perception by following innumerable poetic paths. On the opposite side of the Warped Space triptych there is a trace of the performance-event, documenting a distinct image from theatre’s menagerie: a cubus that can function as a space or a horizon of the stage. An artefact from the performance In the Name of the Mother, the world of icons by the IRWIN group entitled Kapital 2018 is “inserted” exactly into the borderline: the fourth wall is shifted into the background and the actors become a kind of repoussoir. The exhibition within the performance does not want to be a scenography and is not set as such. The audience is invited to take seats and watch the performance only after they have taken a tour of the exhibition. Still, some principles set by landscape painters of the 16th and 17th century are imminent here. They created oversized “canvasses” that were fastened onto the scenery horizons, flanked by curtains and stage sets of forests, cities, houses, etc.. The shift into the gallery or into the world of museums within the stage performance offers an insight into the history of theatre art, when the actor standing in front of the scenography of a city or a forest could easily “stain” his costume with fresh paint. The fantasy world of painted stage curtains and stage scenery is nowadays in theatre often replaced by moving images. In the performance In the Name of the Mother the IRWIN’s icons are seen on the surface of the horizon. They are presenting a micro world of a huge oil painting, one which used to play a role in the context of a theatre performance. In the framework of the installation, which places the exhibition Kapital 2018 into the context of a museum venue, we see a huge photograph, frozen and rendered immobile. While the story is zoomed in, the captured moment is enhanced. Next to it, on a small television screen, a recording of the complete performance In the Name of the Mother is rushing along. “Our period demands a type of man who can restore the lost equilibrium between inner and outer reality. This equilibrium, never static but, like reality itself, involved in continuous change, is like that of a tightrope dancer who, by small adjustments, keeps a continuous balance between his being and empty space.” (Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, 1941) BARBARA NOVAKOVIČ

"White jade can be planted from the earth, while gold can be grown from the land." Ancient couplets, written on the temple of Earth God "Tudigong", Macau Land represents groundedness and fertility. Creation and imagination are allowed with its support. However, when "profit" and "effectiveness" are chosen to be the priority of land’s usage, how can we stick to our own essences without going passively with the social’s flow? Macau was returned to China in 1999 and its economics have been growing rapidly in these two decades. As a type of building material with a long history, bamboo scaffolds are still very commonly used in the streets and alleys of Macau. It symbolizes construction, maintenance and dismantle. It is used to build the traditional folk stage which recap the joys and sorrows of life, as well as the complex city landscape where variations are made possible. Despite of its flexibility, its greatness and the tradition it carries, the fact that it will soon be eliminated seems to be inevitable. The current state of "Who We Are?" is a result of subsequent changes due to different limitations. It eventually shrinks and is trapped in the vast land of splendidness. It echoes our lives in Macau where choices are imposed on us without the reflection of real needs. Homogeneity appears to be the only trend of city’s development. Here, everything can be found except from ourselves. In Macau, who we are?

Most of us spend the day looking at monitors and screens, in a situation curiously similar to that of the public who, following the invention of perspective, have been seeing theater through a large window called Proscenium. Seeing the world through windows is now a different thing than it was in traditional theatres where we continue to make theatre. The tools of representation have changed, the nature of images has changed. For the Portuguese participation in PQ 2019 Exhibition of Countries and Regions, we propose an installation on the mechanisms of representation which, in the time of Photoshop, create and condition the act of seeing the traditional stage. Eight sets by José Capela – which have the way we see them as their theme – can be seen inside six containers whose shape is determined by the representation mechamisms used in each set: axonometry, perpective, tridimensional assembly, etc. Although calculated rationally, the containers are used to constitute a sculptural ensemble that integrates the general landscape of the exhibition, depending on it: space, instalations from other countries and visitors are all reflected in the containers and pavement, which are both fully mirrored.

The immersive installation ZRwhdZ has been created especially for the Prague Quadrennial by Krista and Reinis Dzudzilo, a duo of young Latvian stage designers / visual artists whose work is characterized by purity of space and clarity of idea. ZRwhdZ follows the leitmotiv of this year’s Quadrennial – memory, imagination and transformation. It is inspired by the period composer Richard Wagner spent in Riga working on the model of the perfect music theatre, later fully realized in Bayreuth. Is there anything new about Wagner which we could highlight, or present the Quadrennial viewers with? What unites such different scales: that of the young artist with that of the "great" Wagner? Inspired by the famous quote from Wagner’s final opera, Parsifal – "Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit" or "Here Time Becomes the Space", in ZRwhdZ the artists consider space as a temporal moment, when a new world is born and is dying, the beginning and the end merging into one. Together with composer Krists Auznieks and musical instruments maker Aleksandrs Maijers, Dzudzilo explore the principles of Wagner’s theatre - where sound rises from beneath the feet and travels up to the vocal chords of the singer - and transform them into their own version of ideal theatre inviting to step inside of it and be transfixed by the sound.

Camps are organized, structured, and operate according to a specific system. Concentration camps, refugee camps, inventories, night camps, resting places, arsenals, warehouses. Camps are a permanent feature of our society and yet they lack a clear definition. The multi sensory space created for Prague physically and psychologically challenges its visitors and makes them decide on their own system. Upon entering the installation visitors are greeted in a kiosk by a friendly person behind a counter. They are then invited to enter the premises in an orderly manner. On the way through the installation, guests decide by optional sharing of information which room they will enter next. The visitors thus become part of the system and determine their individual room experience themselves. In the spiral-shaped arrangement of the rooms, the guests find themselves once again behind the counter of the kiosk, which marks the start and end point of the cycle through the installation.Students of the set and costume design department from the HfBK Dresden present a room installation on the occasion of the Prague Quadrennial 2019. The artistic team deals with the diverse meanings of the term "camp" and condenses the different approaches to a walk-in space concept.

A shelter will serve as a place of creation during this 2019 edition of the PQ. The space will be invested with a shelter surrounded by two wavelike walls holding a collective work, realized by Canadian and Quebec students. A team of student will animate the shelter each day, creating a scenography inspired by the surrounded walls, represented by white circles, attached and superimposed, each containing a work of art. The participating schools were therefore invited to create a model, becoming a work of art inspired by a text of theater having particularly marked them during the last five years. Some circles could also represent the work of designers, performing artists, emerging artists, or company whose practice dates back to five years or less. (Alumni) or emerging indigenous artist. Circles will also hold various material for the creation and development of an interactive scenography inside the shelter. Visitors are invited to join the student in this creative lab! A "Making of" video will be record each day and presented at the end of the day. As performance continues to explore and merge with the virtual and as scenographers continue to transform the ways in which space is imagined, the exhibit will strive to re-imagine the ways in which students and emerging designers extend their work digitally. We asked the participants, in addition to their material artifacts,to submit a short video or audio composition in which they extend the central ideas behind their creative work. These digital audio-visual pieces could have taken on a variety of forms, such as a visual or sonic poem, an animated short, a creation diary, a social media stream (such as an Instagram feed), a 360º video, an VR/AR experiment, an argument or a provocation. It could be almost anything! All of the audio visual compositions will be presented as part of the exhibit’s augmented reality project, which seeks to innovate new ways of encountering scenographic practice. These digital compositions will also serve as part of the first contributions to a online database that will bring together performance designers across Canada.

In the same way as a street defined by urban planners is transformed into a space by the action of those walking along it, a line marked on a map that establishes a country’s territory is transformed into a border by the action of negating the other, the alien, the “outsider”. The aim is to prioritise the logic of ambiguity, the logic that turns the border into a crossing, the river into a bridge, the door that closes into one that we open. With the conviction that every space is transformed by actions. Using this logic and this process, the border, the dividing line, creates communication at the same time as separation. The border starts to function as a third entity, a place between two, a play of interactions and cross glimpses, a symbol of exchanges and encounters. The proposal for the pavilion consists of two juxtaposed scenes. An all-encompassing, static scene of a map covering the floor that contrasts with the scene of the specific everyday action of migrants waiting like birds perched on the electricity lines, just before crossing the border from Morocco into the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which forms the skin. The floor covering is a satellite view of the strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. The idea is to position the view, or the map of our blue planet, in an east-west direction rather than the conventional north-south orientation on modern maps, to offer us a new perspective. The skin of the pavilion, which delimits the “territory”, is a light metal structure with a series of silhouettes of men perched atop a symbolic fence: symbolic because it is both hollow and permeable. The anthropomorphic silhouettes will be mirror-like, to introduce the theatre of reflected actions and play with the spectator’s ability to identify with him or herself and with the other. Access to the interior of the pavilion space is through a double door that imitates the gates of a medieval city, positioned just above the strait of Gibraltar.

We focus on two ways in which our experience with boundaries are manifest. For the first project, we show how boundaries are created while individuals and societies form their sense of identity, and how they interact with one another in the presence of these boundaries. By using different layers, we reconstruct the ways in which we experience different levels of boundaries in order to invite the viewers to situate themselves in imaginary situations while engaging with their own experiences. For the second project, a boundary refers to a point at which two or more things of different nature touch one another and form a relationship.Boundaries are not real, but humans perceive them as objects. During this process of humans perceiving their own boundaries, individual differences occur. We constructed our own experiences and imaginations about boundaries in the room that looks like a building. In modern society, people live in the midst of various forms of boundaries. There are a number of ways to look at boundaries, each following different set of definitions and belonging to particular domains. We strove to express these diverse ways in which we perceive and understand the boundaries that we encounter every day. We invite the viewers to relate their own experiences while looking at our work.

• By allowing viewers to pass freely between all our borders, we celebrate each region’s autonomy and personality. • By crossing borders, we learn of others’ ways of life, and by extension, we learn more about ourselves. • By acknowledging that art and collaboration rise above politics, we welcome each other to see and experience our common humanity. To this end, The United States of America proudly joins with Canada, Mexico and Quebec to form a NORTH AMERICAN exposition space for PQ 2019. For us, Theatre is the ultimate art form, and to borrow from the great playwright, Oscar Wilde, it is “…the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being”. For the student exhibit from the USA, this common humanity is embodied in the shape of the double helix of DNA, the very thing that carries life, and unites us all as members of the human race. The spiral twisting shape suggests movement, evolution, and excitement – three attributes which also apply to young designers emerging into the profession. The exuberance of the creative process mirrors the swirl of human existence with its energy, myriad possibilities and sense of hope, and we wish for our exhibit to embody those same ideals. As the theatrical process begins with INSPIRATION, so does our floor – messy, energetic, and covered with pages from the various scripts, stories, and inspirations for the projects exhibited. As ideas begin to form, and COLLABORATION commences, the ideas begin to rise using images of the design processes (sketches, renderings, graphics, plans, and charts). And as we move into PRODUCTION, and begin to share these ideas with an audience, so do the images as they rise, sharing photos from the various featured productions. The selected designs of this exhibit were submitted by 33 designers, (27 women, 6 men). These designers are based in 19 different states in 12 different cities, and hail from 8 different countries. Indeed, there are ways that America still wishes (and needs) to be a melting pot, and we are proud of that.

In the Student Exhibition Section, we will be including their course work that can reflect their imagination and interpretation of dance, drama, musical, and opera. Other chosen pieces represent production work in collaboration with School of Chinese Opera, School of Dance, School of Drama, and School of Music, where their understanding and contribution to realise the performance as a complete art work will be shown. The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, established in 1984, is a leading tertiary institution in performing arts in Asia. It provides professional undergraduate education (BFA) and practice-based postgraduate studies (MFA).

D-Press explores the essence of scenography and its uniqueness. Every theatre production begins with a text, which the scenographer interprets in three dimensions, using materials such as wood, metal, and fabric. Beyond the tangible objects that make up the set, the scenographer must also convey the intangibles – like mood and period to create an immersive experience that activates the senses. The art of theatre must contend with the parameter "time." It should arouse an intellectual and emotional response in the audience of the present. The world of the set is the bridge between space and time, never recreating something old rather using real images to create a unique reality which will be experienced from a new perspective. To what extent is the designer beholden to rules and to what extent can you break the rules? Can Shakespeare's Macbeth be set in Chekov's Cherry Orchard? The criterion is always the same, what is between X, Y, and Z should awaken interest.

Designing theatre illusion is like a game of imaginary worlds. The Bulgarian student exposition presents 3D interactive installations called Game, Illusion and Imagination. Installations introduce to the public the newest generation scene designers and their point of view to the scenic art. The youngest scene designers create theatre worlds with talent, curiosity and variations of skills. They provoke the auditorium's perception with their kinetic imaginariums. Three Bulgarian art academies join their talented students to present their skills and contemporary theatre education.

Students` ability to imagine are the key for transformation. Imagination as the centre of creative process stablishes links between reality and Utopia. Brazil Student Exhibition curators, therefore, also provoked students to articulate creative tactics of negotiation for the spaces-times situations we daily face. The selected projects, required to fit into a post office standard box, privilege imaginative and interactive proposals to transform local or global contexts, presented in 3 categories: SPACE[ex]POSITIVE for the first time students designed their exhibition space, invited to explore positive and innovative ways of expose the works of the other two categories in coexistence. The work selected for this category reflects the concepts of imagination, transformation and interaction. EXPO [form]ACTION encompasses the projects from students of various institutions, developed with tutor’s guidance, covering the areas of design for performance: set, costume, lighting, sound, makeup, architecture, technology, etc, for this category, 16 projects were selected by a jury. [talk]ACTIVE is a sharing face-to-face and/or virtual meeting, presenting 08 selected working methodologies and practices. This program will take place daily, within the exhibition in a dedicated space. The works were selected through video-lessons, motivated by the question: What is fundamental for artistic training in design for performance?

The United Playgrounds Company is pleased to present its newest project, the "Theatre Box". This is just the first step of our plan to integrate theatre into everyday life. Our company is prepared to give your city a new network of theatres, available for your citizens to visit on any street with the help of our specially equipped theatre box. The creators behind this project are certain that this is the theatre to capture the spirit of our time. We made it as convenient, accessible, and affordable as possible — and now it’s always within reach, wherever you may be. To present their project at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial, United Plаygrоunds has provided an example of their original theatre box, already open for visitors to try out today. They will become part of the audience for a production developed especially for the Quadrennial, in collaboration with young Russian director Andrei Stadnikov. Here’s what the director has to say about his play AT THAT TIME IN PRAGUE, A MAN TRIED TO BURN HIMSELF ALIVE: "The spectacle is the bad dream of a modern society in chains and ultimately expresses nothing more than its wish for sleep." Guy Debord Our performance, as a tribute to the Situationists of the 20th century, represents a wandering journey through Prague’s history — and that of all humankind along with it — over the course of the last 50 years. Our point of origin is a single event, which took place in Prague 50 years ago, in 1969: Jan Palach’s self-immolation on Wenceslas Square. At the site of his legendary act, our performance will also begin its journey through space and time. 4 screens will ferry audiences between past and present among stops around the city, giving them the opportunity to compare the present with the past and reality with illusion.

Since 1986, Morocco has set up an academic training in scenography at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts and Cultural Animation. The laureates of this formation bring a great plus to the performing arts and contemporary art in a general way. Architecture students receive diversified training, in which they pass the urban scenography. The new generations being connected are self-taught and learn the latest techniques related to scenography, be it that related to the performing arts or that urbain.

Our shadow is similar to ourselves. It is the most abstract form of us. It shows us who we are and what we look like. Even if we forget it, it is always tied to us and he appears many times during the day like our intentions.

Explore the ways in which the self senses and how sensation is shaped through interaction and space. Kolo invites the audience to be in conflict between a private moment and a busy environment. We invite you to notice. Do we need a renewed sense of intimacy and connection? This work ponders peaceful zones while engaging the senses in a multimodal environment. In a seemingly hectic place, how can you feel peace and solitude? We all started in a state of vulnerability but it may not be remembered. Can you remain open when others are influencing your environment? How does communication between two worlds take place? Nod your head to show that you understand. Look confused if you don't. Has communication taken place or was it merely an illusion? Increased awareness requires greater responsibility.

Georgian student exhibition is based on the historical and mythological roots of contemporary Georgia and at the same time is linked to the PQ 2019 theme, which is inspired by the highest prize, Golden Triga. Colchis - the land of the Golden Fleece, destination of the Argonauts and home to Medea, is the present-day western Georgia, the part of which - Abkhazia, nowadays is occupied by Russia. Emerging designers from Georgia are creating imaginary new reality on the bases of historical and personal memory. Mixed, multilayered system unifying past and future, natural and artificial, local and global is connecting epochs, uniting people and making common place in between of reality and virtuality. In the process of seeking the forms fitting the epoch, the idea of time collection and space unification, as the way of modeling a new reality, is essential for young generation. Reflecting the situation, under the influence of technological expansion they are using ways and methods, that are fundamentally changing usual space-time continuum, creating a new aesthetical narrative - an absolutely new interrelation of text, object, image, background, performer, recipient... Combining a desired background with live foreground action, merging imaginary environment, lost landscapes, sequence of photos, and videos, antic text (Medea) and recipients, artists are forcing specific space to perceive more than it can do. Presented as a dynamic system that can transform and distort, it begins to spread, expand and join the game with imagination, time and boundaries. Refugees and visitors as the main characters of this real/virtual theatre. Opportunity of choice - to be protagonist of the play or not, to observe or to cooperate. Different languages, different people in “an indefinable distance and immeasurable time” and the students as a guides in the journey to the memory and imagination. All process will be shared on an interactive social media platform - MEDEA/MEDIA, created for this exhibition and managing by the students not only during PQ but also before and after. Project Manager: Vata Mataradze, Project Coordinator: Shota Bagalishvili

OTOÑO is an intimate space of friction between collective and individual imaginaries. Transiting through centric and peripheral dialectics, our childhood / adulthood memories take technological / analogical forms to seek for habitat, territory and flaunering images to feed our imaginative cycle. Within organical and concrete walls, come and cross our experience with your gaze.

MOVING MEETINGS by Andrea Lindeneg explores spatial interdependency. By sonically deconstructing – isolating - amplifying – reassembling – it seeks to hack and raise questions regarding mechanisms of movement in space. It asks, how to create a space that is in constant movement - exploring not only what exists in the movement but what is left behind after the movement. A space constantly creating and erasing itself – leaving traces. What is repetition in the context of movement? What does it mean to stay or to leave? Does a space have to be solid in order to be a space? Can scenography be that which springs from an action - from an interaction? The work will be a space for perceiving what surrounds it. MOVING MEETINGS invites the audience members to step into a sound isolated box for one person at a time, exploring sonically amplified fragments of the movements in the larger exhibition area. By stepping out of the exhibition area – isolating themselves visually inside the boxes – audience members are exposed to a soundscape to which they can only add themselves by again stepping into the exhibition area. Thus the work will be in constant movement as a consequence of encounters – the audience members being the catalyzers of spatial interdependency and creators of the given space. The audience members are welcome to stay inside the boxes for as long as they want and to return as many times as they want.

The education of scenography at the ENAT - National School of Theatre Arts of Mexico - is structured in a program that includes advanced professional training in scenic design, costume design, lighting design and production design. The exposed work shows the material of two students graduated from the school: Natalia Sedano and Aurelio Palomino. Both have been designing sets, lighting, and costumes in many productions with very different approaches and different styles. The exhibition focuses on their creative processes, showing their work when they were students and how they have progressed by becoming professionals. In the interest to encourage their professional career, we decided to watch the work that these students have done, upon leaving school.

A great adventure lies ahead! Through a cosmic dialogue there will be the telling of a tale which has likely never before been told on such a massive scale: the story of us. We dared to invite anyone who felt they can speak for themselves. We are not represented, we ourselves represent. It is the creation of a modern greeting aimed towards another civilization in unknown regions of the universe. We’ve sent thousands of invitations to people around the world to join our open call. From them we collected numerous images, sounds, videos, and movements that will be sent to Others out there, in space. The variety of these forms is now being stored within a vast yet fundamental medium — water. According to many, the most representative component of every living creature on our planet and a substantial part of our bodies. In this extreme time of 2019, half-a-century since we landed on the Moon, we chose to diverge from limitation, aiming to encompass the world as a whole; and to save it within drops of liquid. When the moment arrives, it will either be sent out, or given back to nature — For Them / Us to know, who we were. In this laboratory we created, the New Message is being developed, shown, and continuously transformed as it enters its final liquid form. The Polish project is a chance to create an egalitarian message of our world and our times, to see the double of our contemporaneity. Perhaps in this mirror-like reflection we will be able to find answers to the most enduring of our questions…

We are a circle. We stand in the center of our space and gaze at our borders, recognizing no beginning, recognizing no ending. We circumvent our lives in a continuous flow of cyclic movements that alienate our production. We’ve decided to open the circle in half, yet without breaking it, stretching our perceptions, unfolding our layers. The circle becomes a children-drawn bird that flies in the sky of the imagination. It frees our head and declutters our minds.

By manipulating the formal qualities of sight and sound, this installation restructures the visa interview process Filipinos undergo when seeking entrance into a number of developed countries. It is an experience the artist herself underwent and is replicated in some other countries whose citizens seek to cross borders into more affluent, developed nations. Upon wearing the headset, one is confronted by a barrage of questions that are highly-personal and intrusive. Surrounded by TV screens, the audience bears witness to how Filipinos of varying ages answer the seemingly-endless set of questions, often struggling with their replies. In this manner the exhibit tackles the subjects of mobility and migration and interweaves them with the theme of “Imagination, Transformation, Memory”. Essentially when people strive to move from one space to another (in this case one country to another) they are moved to do so by a sense of imagination: of what could be, of what the “other” space could bring. Yet the process of passing through “border gates and guardians” can be dificult, even torturous and the process affects people, transforms them. This transformation then is what this exhibit explores. These are memories of people who imagined themselves moving hopefully from one space to another, only to be changed and transformed, often negatively, by the entire experience.

Pavilion was conceived as a concept in itself. The construction can be crossed from to both ends. Visible by its neighbours, this assembling welcomes the visitors and offers them a panoramic on the world of art and live performance. Memory The history written by the Principality of Monaco with live performance is powerful : it hosted Serge de Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes company for many years throughout the last century . The way creation was then considered, by gathering artists from different artistic fields, led to a model which is still a reference today. Historical pieces have indeed been created in Monte-Carlo. This peculiar enlightenment around dance is still broadcasted today by the Compagnie des Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Its creations are multiple, as choreographers of all styles are invited to produce high level shows. Imagination This dynamic of sharing is also at work with the Pavillon Bosio through its collaboration with the Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Indeed, for more than ten years, its director and choreographer, Jean-Christophe Maillot, has been inviting the student-scenographers to join his dancers, thence becoming choreographers for a while. Accompanied by the pedagogical team of the Pavillon Bosio, they conceive together series of choreographed pieces. The encounter with the public takes place during an event titled the Imprévus _ Unforeseen Events. The shows most often take place in the studios of the company, then transformed in a theater. The stake is here to build a space for encounters, experimentations and sharing around a demanding scenic and choreographic expression. This research laboratory has been giving place to a large number of creations and has been at the origin of the emerging of young authors. Transformation/ Education To give a restitution of these stage experiences, to shift them within an exhibition are at the stake of the Pavilion project. It presents a space that is animated by recordings, photographs and archives. If nothing is accurate about the shape this pavilion will take, a certainty remains : the representations will be lively, focusing on the stakes of contemporary creation.

The exhibition Prague Isn’t Czechia presents scenography in an exhibition space and within the setting of the surrounding landscape. Visitors first encounter the sales booth of a fictional travel agency – i.e., an "installation" that is right at home in a space dedicated to exhibitions and trade fairs. The booth offers educational tours aimed at introducing travelers to life in small Czech towns, villages, and the countryside. Visitors who accept the offer become co-actors on the exhibition’s second level, a curated experience presenting the reality of the chosen location. A forest, a kettle, rubber boots, strawberries, a factory, beer, a pub, a shop – scenography can be all this and more. The exhibition’s authors hope to introduce the Prague Quadrennial’s visitors (especially foreign visitors) to authentic Czech life by making the chosen non-Prague locations physically present, and thus to engage in dialogue with a real place and real people. The performer becomes the audience and the audience the performer, and their mutual interactions creates a changing picture of the particular place. Scenography is an arrangement that is interculturally intellectually understood as a means for giving an event the context without which the chosen place would not possess the desired meanings. Each trip organized by Prague Isn’t Czechia represents a distinctive scenographic realization that, through the lens of theatre, can be seen as an experience. In this understanding, scenography "shows" the audience meanings and "places itself" into the role of something that should be seen, heard, touched, or tasted. For more info and tickets check www.prahanenicesko.cz

The student exhibition of China is titled Projects in the Drawer. It focuses on young designers’ ideas that extend beyond professional experience and judgment. Although these ideas are unrecognised and impossible to realise, having been temporarily sealed away in a drawer, they have significant potential. This exhibition intends to highlight the value of "failure". Scenography is a highly technical and practical process that encourages collaboration. However, almost every designer has a few ideas that are never displayed and are kept inside a drawer. Nearly every scenography student has whimsical and impractical ideas that result in such a situation. These impossible ideas are an extreme form of imagination. Yet it is precisely the impossibility that imbues these ideas with utopian meaning and values. While they are unachievable, they will continue to influence a designer’s work in the future. The drawer is a metaphor that reminds us of the potential costs of making creative works. The drawer is a private space in which we hide our own histories, so that a drawer’s individuality reflects its contemporaneity in art. The student works exhibited are defined as "art imagination that overflows from the shadowed space of the drawer". We use the keywords "drawer", "shadow" and "overflow" as the basis of the entire structure to underline the constantly growing energy that lies in the darkness of the drawer. This installation is also the set of a staged performance, of which a video recording is displayed in the exhibition. As with the national exhibition of China, the student exhibition is also arranged in concentric circles. By regularising this pattern, the space can expand infinitely.

The Swedish student exhibition, “Reflecting Space”, has been created by five scenography students from Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts. It shows not only their artistic creativity but also their thoughts about their work in relation to the present. They explore themes like continuity, variability, consciousness, sustainability and show a desire for affinity and the incomprehensible. These presentations show examples of how design crosses boundaries or plays with space as well as examples of working methods that generate content for participative works and the relationship between audience and performance.

"The paint on the desk is still a vague mass of colorant, pigment and binder soon to be transformed into an image. I am intrigued by the moment the transformation is happening. Paint may still seem arbitrary without having the status of an image. The beginning of any painting is abstract if looking at the first patch of color. Since the times of cave paintings people have depicted better life. Everything that we have now has been gained thanks to the imagination of our ancestors. What will come in the future is created right now." Looking at her own scenography for the production of Mountains (Estonian Drama Theatre, 2016), Liisi Eelmaa is seeking to blend photography and painting. While merging the two different mediums, she interrogates both painting and splashes of colored paint on it. She explores both mediums by transforming the object into different scale, weight and substance. The colors ability of expression is relevant both physically and on a photographic image.

SASAGERU—in Japanese—is the action of expressing our dedication and devotion for others. Students and young designers have created their own works inspired by this word. Through their creative process and exhibits, you will get a glimpse into our society, culture and educational circumstances.

Starting from the common curratorial concept of Serbia's appearance Self(up)bringing, the work SEE/SAW explores the construction of a community and society through the creation of an individual and himself. Seesaw literally translated represents an element from a children's playground that functions through the involvement at least two people who are in the relationship of strong dependence and counterweight which produces the action. As a wordplay, See (present tense) and Saw (past tense) represent encounters of various experiences that affect the self-(up)building process, opening the question "Who am I?", "Who was I?", And "Why I'm still transforming? "and "How is the world transforming around me? ". Every segment of our being and our environment is susceptible to constant change. Continuous change faces us with the time we left behind, as well as with the one that follows. In reflective objects of the environment that can be one's eyes, we become aware that the child's appearance becomes a memory. Often we forget everything that has built us, but in encounter with the familiar, it is possible to bring it back. The game as a research element is for a long time unjustly expelled from the process of creation in numerous artistic practices. This phenomenon is on the one hand counterintuitive, if we consider that a great percentage of art today is purely intellectual creation - and in all research, and therefore intellectual, the game is an irreplacable starting point for discoveries. In all spheres of work, and in particular art, the most powerful results come from the complete cession to work, so the boundary between "serious" work and the child's playfulness is completely voided. Work and play become one and the same thing.

A project by the Scenography Department of the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava STELLA A levitating piece of fabric connecting - The past with the present - Production with design - Crafts with arts - A necessity with fantasy - Ideas with style - The commercial aspect with individualism - Fashion runways with theatrical production - The Antiquity with the future

"Swag" - Australia, in common usage: a sleeping roll in which personal belongings are bundled; bedding or sleeping bag used in camping. Take your shoes off and climb into bed with us…. Lie down on our hand-worked understory of backyard textures and recollections under an Australian evening sky and look up into fragments of childhood memory floating above. Three Australian performing arts schools collaborate to bring you a very personal experience of the ambivalence of the Australian dream. Design and costume students of the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth have pieced together a bittersweet cross-country collaboration exploring aspects of childhood experience – of special places, of delight and belonging, of unbelonging and loss."Swag" - Australia, in common usage: a sleeping roll in which personal belongings are bundled; bedding or sleeping bag used in camping. Take your shoes off and climb into bed with us…. Lie down on our hand-worked understory of backyard textures and recollections under an Australian evening sky and look up into fragments of childhood memory floating above. Three Australian performing arts schools collaborate to bring you a very personal experience of the ambivalence of the Australian dream. Design and costume students of the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and West Australian Academy of Performing Arts in Perth have pieced together a bittersweet cross-country collaboration exploring aspects of childhood experience – of special places, of delight and belonging, of unbelonging and loss.

- Living plant of Ro and Ju (Romeo and Juliet) - Young scenographers found out “Ro and Ju’s" talks through the nature, trees and plants. - “Ro and Ju” are expressing their feelings by light and sound. Their talks are melodic, pure and holy - This art design exhibits their warm feelings, melancholy, destiny and endless space; strengths, courage, genuine passion - Soft and fast, Bright but not shiny, nature but unalive.

Te āhua tū wātea: NZ Emerging Designers showcases the work artists and designers from Aotearoa, New Zealand. Presenting works that reflect each designer’s current practice, in process and progress, these will evolve over the course of PQ, in response to questions of site, territory and opportunities for encounter.

The Anteroom, designed by students and graduates of IADT, is an immersive installation that combines both physical and digital scenography to create an interactive digital mirror in a 3-dimensional space. This piece is a collaboration between artists coming from both physical design and creative coding backgrounds. Taking Plato’s allegory of the cave as a reference point, this installation explores the idea of mediated unrealities. Within this cave-like environment various levels of reality and unreality exist simultaneously. So much of our current experience of the world is fed through visual representations which are in turn influenced by various ideologies, technologies, companies and algorithms. This piece provides a space for self-reflection and new perspectives on the use of the participant’s image. Cuid, designed by students and graduates of IT Sligo, is a multi-channel video art piece. Protest has been the pinnacle of Irish change over the last number of years. Attitudes to sexuality in Ireland where impervious to the values in Western societies which created an oppressive culture of violent subterfuge and silent submission in a male dominated environment. The portrayal of the Irish woman is explored through digital image, conveying her place in the patriarchal structures of the Catholic church and the destruction of this through protest movements where human rights were vociferated. Some progress has ensued. The Anteroom/Cuid presents a number of works from various emerging theatre artists based in Ireland. These works are presented together as part of the graduate section of the Irish Society of Stage and Screen Designers (ISSSD) and are supported by the Institute of Art Design and Technology (IADT) and the Institute of Technology Sligo (IT Sligo).

The Future Utopias Imaginarium at PQ is a kinetic, experimental laboratory space directly linked to the Staging Places Studio – the UK space in the Exhibition of Countries & Regions (www.stagingplaces.co.uk). It will be populated and facilitated by a dynamic student and early career curatorial team selected from responses to a series of online and face to face provocations that established in countries and regions throughout the UK between November 2018 and June 2019, organised by the Society of British Theatre Designers and the Performance Design Education Collective. How can we conceptualise the relationship between the virtual and the real, the imaginary and the realised? How can we think of utopias in spatial terms, and space in utopian terms? How might different kinds of media map new forms of utopian spaces? Can performance design, an art form of experience, be approached as an act of prototyping imaginary futures that challenge existing realities?

The Changing Room is an immersive, interactive exhibition, which conveys the idea of imagination and how we interpret it. The imagination plays a significant part in theatre. The designers and artists become translators, using their imagination to bring the characters and sceneries alive. Taiwan Student Exhibition aims to highlight this romantic process of the design and take the visitors on the journey. The exhibition contains two sections: the first section is presented like a fitting room, and the visitors can try on the costume from a character. They will start to feel the stories once they enter the changing room, and the more they are involved the deeper their understanding will be. The second section presents the actual scene from the play so the viewers can have a clue of how the designers interpreted the script. The work we are going to present is by a young playwriter. It is a local story that reflects the modern society in Taiwan. It’s our honor to introduce the concept of imagination with a lively story as an example.

The Idea Shelter: Imagination is a place of all possibilities, safe from judgment. Students from Quebec combined with schools from the rest of Canada and emerging artists from coast to coast will host a scenographic exhibit inspired by the texts that have marked them in the last 5 years. The Idea Shelter is inspired by the collective past of English and French Canada, as cultures who have all come from elsewhere in our own or in our ancestor’s past. The central element is the frame of a shelter representing the place we have all come to as Canadians. This space will be a creative changing scenographic space that can be added to by our students as well as any visitors who come to the exhibit. There will be a maker’s table with some light tools on site. We urge each school to bring some raw materials that might be interesting to play with in this space. This work and the evolution of the space will be documented and replayed on video within the exhibition.

How do we materialise the unthought, spark the unexpected, break from the formats that elide past consciousness into creative movement? How do we make a procedure that opens up the possible within the narrow framework of an international exposition? How do we share the experimental process, the hunt for new concepts, the often disarrayed momentum of the imaginary? Rather than organise a selection of the most brilliant students and emerging artists and present their final works, why not first create a space to liberate the imagination and create together? Brought together under the auspices of ARTCENA - the National Centre for Circus Arts, Street Arts and Theatre, the pedagogic directors of eight establishments teaching scenography in France dreamt of a “new school” (The Ninth School), an utopia that brings together students of each discipline in order to build a team for the thought, conception, and production of the pavilion, accompanied by Philippe Quesne, scenographer and director of the Centre Dramatique National Nanterre-Amandiers. In that, what the French pavilion of schools proposes is a communal work process that stimulates creativity through the encounter of the other, that implements a programme open wide on the world of today and on the diversity of scenographic education, and thus the performance art of tomorrow.

The Imaginary World of the Kazakh Ertegi Tale manifests the highest level of unconstrained creativity and free fantasy. These tales allow the spirit to rise above the material and physical planes. They offer an elevated "intention" to go beyond limits (which probably do not really exist), and to achieve one’s dreams or walk through the gateway to the realization of these higher planes in the mind and their intentions. In these tales, we can see the opening of this space of possible ideas. In an Ertegi tale, each character embodies some kind of unusual, wonderful, magical transformation. And this, in the terminology of quantum physics, is like "a super space of new possibilities". This is not fiction, and not a dream – it is a magical reality. Our students’ work with Ertegi tales manifests the principles of "hyperbole", "superpowers", "deformation", and "transformation" ... Entering into the Imaginary World of the Ertegi Tale opens the mind to a free flight of fantasy and evidence of another world that we have yet to access. Myths - imagination - magic - are not alchemy or witchcraft; they are in fact the states and elements that make up the sphere of human consciousness. The Imaginary World of Fantasy and Ertegi Tales are the source of our imaginative view of the World, the power and potential of the human spirit, through which humanity rises above the physical and rational. The Symbolic Representation of the World of Fantasy opens extraordinary opportunities for maintaining the energy and strength of spirit, harmony and faith in miracles, and the triumph of justice. The fantastic world of the Ertegi tale transforms human consciousness, giving birth to new images to create a new reality. In the world of the Ertegi tale Creation is the highest value. Faith in one’s own strengths and the boundless possibilities of the self are born in this world of unusual possibilities.

The IMAGINOMETRIC SOCIETY is proud to share with all PQ19’s participants and visitors its PRAGUE EXPERIMENT. By establishing a new science, Imaginometrics, our PRAGUE EXPERIMENT will be able to detect and measure visitor’s imagination. To fulfill this impossible task, we had to conceive a new scientific tool: the Imaginometer. In the core of our instrument we will share with our visitors the first principle of Imaginometrics: Imagination can only happen through relationship between human beings. Visitors will be able to observe Imaginometer’s functioning, contribute to shape it, or be fully engaged in our experiment, living a personalized experience. Through bone conductions headphones, each visitor will be able to explore a unique soundscape, containing several layers. Sonification of biometric parameters will be combined to sonification of the huge creative energy produced by the Quadriennal, as sampled by our Human Data Recorders. Visitors individual imagination will interact with the everchanging imagination of our performers, following the second principle of Imaginometrics: Imagination increases by reflecting itself. Each act of the Imaginometer will be unique and non-repeatable, but visitors will be able to access a memory of the experiment, witnessing the third principle of Imaginometrics: Imagination can only be recreated. www.imaginometricsociety.com/thepragueexperiment

Starting from Shakespeare’s vision on the theater: "All the world’s a stage", we are looking for ways to reconstitute the past performances through objects and memories that survived centuries. Not only the survival of the stage but its revival through the transformation and the rebirth of the sacredness of the theater performance.