‍SYNOPSIS

My neighbor has invested €3000 in her flower garden. At least. My neighbor carries boulders by hand to make a park in hisgarden. My neighbour writes poetry while watching the news. What makes me different?

I recognise everyone. But no one recognises me. Sometimes I feel that no one sees us.  

In a small town like Seda, what prevents me from really knowing the person who lives next door? Is it possible for a moment tobreak down the walls that separate us? What can we build together?

During the performance, the people of Seda will take over the local school, which is due to close at the end of the summer. Theschool used to be one of the few meeting places for the local community. The site-specific performance will move through the different rooms and corridors,transforming the building into a place of community once again.

‍

Visual and theatre artist Max Fernandes (Portugal) and playwright Elza Marta Ruža (Latvia) will spend July in Seda. During the residency, the artists will meet and get to know the local people, listen to their stories, and share their experiences and knowledge and during the Valmiera Summer Theatre Festival invite the audience to the final event of the residency – a collective performance created with the active people of Seda.

Max Fernandes (1979, Portugal) is an artist and educator. He has developed his artistic research and practice closely regarding the relationship among art, society, politics, and ecology. He works amid object production, new media, and performance as a practice of public engagement.

Elza Marta Ruža graduated from the Drama and Textual Studies programme in Latvian Academy of Culture in 2022. Her most notable work to date is the text for the play Gentle Power (Maigā vara, 2023), which was created in collaboration with director Matīss Kaža for the Latvian National Theatre. She was also a playwright forthe play The Sun Goes Down in the East (Saule riet austrumos), which was staged in the independent theatre Dirty Deal Teatro in 2021. Elza continues to develop her creative language by participating in various readings and creating performances highlighting the theme of interaction between human privacy and politics.

The artists' residency is organized by the New Theatre Institute of Latvia in collaboration with the Valmiera Summer Theatre Festival and it is part of the international project Magic Carpets activities in Latvia. The project Magic Carpets is a cooperation platform bringing together 19 biennials, triennials, festivals, organizations, institutes, creative spaces, and other cultural promoters from 19 different European Union and candidate countries. Their mission is to provide young artists with the opportunity to participate in residencies and create new works with local artists and communities that highlight local particularities and sustainthe storytelling tradition in contemporary society, thus promoting cultural access, activism, and involvement.

The project Magic Carpets is supported by the EU programme “Creative Europe” and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republicof Latvia.