Artistic Director of New Theatre Institute of LV Berger Bek

Remodelling the Future – Reflections on experiments in new kinds of international collaboration.

If we were to imagine a new kind of international collaboration what would it look like? Is it possible to redistribute privileges and disassemble power structures from across borders? What are the ideal qualities for collaborations to produce a new kind of culture creating with multiple international partners? How do we make models that create focused and sustainable modes of working? In 2023 Bek Berger will lead and deliver three major experiments in international collaboration as instigated in her position of Artistic Director of the New Theatre Institute of Latvia. These are: The Shake Down with Rosendal Theatre (Norway/Latvia program for teenage international festival curators), Baltic Take Over (A festival curated by Baltic curators in Helsinki) and the 2023 edition of Homo Novus Festival (Co-curated by non-professionals). These projects represent a curatorial desire to redistribute who has the power, question who is on who’s stages and tests our new methodologies of sharing across boarders. The time spent at SAARI residence will be focused on reflecting, processing, documenting and generating a dissemination strategy rooted in artistic intervention opposed to a tradition reporting. The residence will provide a safe haven to exhale and then to immediately inhale a focused energy to ensure that the results of these experiments are not lost but strengthen by new mythologies and methodologies of sharing these ideas. Drawing on other projects such as Reshape or BEPART - Bek will spend time during the residency to develop prototypes of tools that can assist in a the inception and creation of new kinds of international curation and collaboration. The design of the prototypes will directly come from deep analysis of the learnings of 2023. These prototypes will be tested online with colleagues and international collaborators as well as other artsits at Saari. Such formats could include a card game, an ideas generator, collaborators checklist etc.