Claiming Common Spaces IV – Cool Down

›Claiming Common Spaces IV: Cool Down‹

The festival ›Claiming Common Spaces‹ by the Alliance of International Production Houses will take place this year from 20. – 26.06. at PACT Zollverein in Essen and from 01. – 09.07. at HELLERAU - European Centre for the Arts in Dresden.

The fourth edition of ›Claiming Common Spaces‹ is a festival, thematic platform and working meeting all at once. Under the motto ›Cool Down‹, it focuses on our interaction with planet Earth. The climate crisis calls for radical rethinking and action in all fields of social and political activity. Whether in economics, education, technology, urban and landscape planning, or culture – we urgently need new conditions and practices for a future worth living in and for coexistence with human and non-human actors.

With a series of dance and theatre productions, installations, participatory performances, panels, and interactive workshops, ›Claiming Common Spaces IV: Cool Down‹ invites contributors and visitors alike to reflect, participate, take action and engage aesthetically with the challenges of today. Sensual, physically and emotionally activating spaces of experience and discourse are intended to encourage people to think about a new way of living together, to expand their options for action and agency, to exploit the potential of art and to take a stance on the climate crisis.

To the complete programme in Essen & Dresden

Download programme schedule at PACT

›Claiming Common Spaces IV: Cool Down‹ is supported within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media.The Dresden edition of ›Cool Down‹ is supported by the Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung together with the Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden.

In June 2018, the Alliance of International Production Houses launched a part festival, part-working-meeting called ›Claiming Common Spaces‹ designed to link specific aspects of the alliance’s common key themes with different working practices at the venues themselves. At each instalment of the event, the alliance invites artists, researchers and activists to come together and engage in discussions, labs, installations and performances.

Photo: Dirk Rose

Within the framework of ›CCS IV‹, the residency format ›Community of Practice‹ initiates dialogue between artists and experts from various fields of knowledge. The participating artists were selected on the basis of their interest in contributing to the festival’s theme by sharing and further developing their ideas, questions and concepts transdisciplinary with other scientists, artists, practitioners and activists.