Have the political passions that were associated with twentieth-century revolutions and social strife been exhausted? Can we forgive each other? And whom should we not forgive? The performance festival We Are All Emotional, which will take place on December 3–4, 2021 in Prague is organized by tranzit.cz / Matter of Art in collaboration with Divadlo X10 and co-curated by members of the tranzit.org network.
Bad news (25 November)
tranzit.cz / Matter of Art announce that the festival of performance art We Are All Emotional, due to take place on December 3–4, 2021, has been postponed. Our organization has decided to take this step in response to the worrying development of the epidemic situation in the Czech Republic and other countries. We are currently working with our partners to ensure that the festival can take place on an alternative date in 2022. We apologize to all audiences, artists, performers, and partners affected by this change.
→ An official statement on the current situation on our website
→ Download the text in .doc and .pdf
”It is with a heavy heart that we postpone the international performance festival We Are All Emotional for the second time because of the Covid-19 pandemic. At times like this, cultural institutions find themselves in a difficult situation. Health professionals are exhausted, hospitals are being turned into covid wards, and there is zero faith in the government in the face of insufficient, delayed measures which no one trusts or understands and which only serve to divide society. In such a situation, does it make sense to organize mass cultural events that contribute to the spread of the virus, even given the fact that audiences hunger for them, artists crave them, financial backers demand them, and they help us all maintain our mental health? For the umpteenth time, cultural institutions are faced with a dilemma that is emotionally very challenging and that they lack the expertise to solve. We have decided to postpone our festival once again, until next year. We follow the code of a feminist institution, and we do not want to contribute to the spread of disease, jeopardize the health of society as a whole, and undermine the overall level of healthcare by overwhelming health facilities. The flip side of this decision is fatigue and the bitter feeling that we have wasted not only our time, energy, and resources but also those of our collaborators and partners and that in some other country, with some other government, we would not be in this situation. On the other hand, at this moment, when we lack meaning in what we are doing in the context of the whole social situation, postponing the festival is the best decision for us.”
—The tranzit.cz collective
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What emotions can unite us, and which emotions divide us? Which emotions should we trust to be our guides? Can we feel hopeful again? These and other questions outline the thematic framework of the upcoming performance festival We Are All Emotional, which will take place on December 3–4, 2021 in Prague.
The program comprises new works by Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Larisa David, Helena Eribenne, Anetta Mona Chișa & Lucia Tkáčová, Kolektiv Prádelna/Laundry Collective, Hajnal Németh, Ovid Pop, Maja Štefančíková, Doris Uhlich, and Zorka Wollny. The ten new performative pieces will be performed by members of the ensemble of Divadlo X10 – one of Prague's most prolific theatre spaces for contemporary drama. The joint event heralds the upcoming twentieth anniversary of tranzit.org, which will be celebrated in 2022.
Admission to the festival is free of charge. For more details please visit www.matterof.art.
→ Facebook event
→ Press release
tranzit.org is a unique network of civic associations working independently in the field of contemporary art in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia as well as across the borders of wider Europe. Its main goal is to support and articulate emancipatory practices and establish connections between culture and society by moving across geographies, generations, and political realms. Since its founding in 2002, tranzit has been a critical (and self-critical) platform that challenges dominant narratives of post-war European (art) histories. It has promoted contemporary art practices, theory, and social discourses with an aim to contribute to present-day mobilizations of solidarity and community building in a Europe of rising nationalism, cultural essentialism, growing economic egoism, and social as well as gender inequality. Each tranzit works under its own conditions in a variety of local cultural and social contexts, using different formats and methods to contextualize, generate or host theoretical, artistic, and activist debates around today’s exigencies. Tranzit’s activities include exhibitions, thematic projects, seminars, publications based on long-term research, and participatory interventions into the public discourse. ERSTE Foundation is the main partner of tranzit.org.