Our Common Garden

Artistic biotope and performance project

A project by fringe ensemble, Bonn (DE), the Latvian Academy of Culture, Riga (LV), Teatro Stabile del Veneto, Padua/Venice (IT) and the Faculty of Communication Sciences at Vilnius University (VU)

OUR COMMON GARDEN is an international project at the interface of performance, exhibition and installation. It takes place simultaneously in three cities – in Bonn, Riga and Venice – and connects the work of artists, institutions and audiences across national borders. The starting point is the collaboration between the fringe ensemble Bonnthe Latvian Academy of Culture and the Teatro Stabile del Veneto.

The project ties in with our work GARTEN DES WIDERSTANDS, which ran for six weeks in 2025 at the Kunstmuseum Bonn for six weeks. In contrast to GARTEN DES WIDERSTANDS, OUR COMMON GARDEN shifts the focus to a European perspective: the garden becomes a shared space – an image of coexistence, responsibility and exchange.

Inspired by the ideas of landscape architect Gilles Clément we see Europe as such a “common garden”. Different experiences, backgrounds and perspectives meet here and relate to each other.

The participating museums in the cities of Bonn, Riga and Padua, where the project will take place over three weeks in the fall of 2027, will become open performance spaces: visitors can come, stay and return at any time – and experience how the space continuously changes. Artistic teams from various disciplines will develop improvisations, scenes, texts, movements, installations, sounds and music on site, react to each other and enter into direct exchange with the audience.

Each project week has its own thematic focus. Works curated by the respective museums for this project supplement and change the performance and exhibition space from week to week. Parts of the teams will move between the cities, creating connections between the locations and shifting perspectives. We will make these digitally tangible.

This is accompanied by the growth of an open archive that makes processes visible and accessible. A podcast extends the exchange beyond the physical spaces.

OUR COMMON GARDEN is therefore not just an artistic project, but a living process – a space in which encounters, change and shared thinking in and for Europe take center stage.

The management teams of all partners at the kick-off meeting in Bonn in March 2026.

Performance
Fall 2027
Bonn, Riga, Padua

The partners

The Teatro Stabile del Veneto is one of the most important production theaters in Italy, a renowned center of artistic and cultural tradition. It operates venues in Venice, Padua and Treviso. It combines regional tradition with innovative cultural projects. The aim is to work on a sustainable and digitally advanced reality in order to promote local talent and reach an ever larger audience. TSV cooperates with the universities of Padua and Venice, schools in the region, small local theater groups, cultural and community associations. Education is also close to TSV’s heart: the drama academy is based on an innovative model developed together with the region and financed by the EFS program (European Social Fund). TSV manages the Universerìe project, in which students from the University of Padua are actively involved as authors and actors. The theater is also part of the “Teatri per la Regione Veneto” network, which works to promote theater in the region.

The Latvian Academy of Culture is a state university for art, culture and research based in Riga. Since its foundation in 1990, it has offered bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in areas such as theater, film, dance, cultural management, cultural heritage and creative industries. A particular focus is on combining artistic education with the requirements of the cultural and creative sectors. The academy is well connected internationally, participates in numerous exchange programs and cooperates with partner institutions in Europe and worldwide. With facilities such as the National Film School and the National Performing Arts School, it also offers practical training and production conditions.

As part of OUR COMMON GARDEN, the Lettsche Kulturakademie works primarily with two groups: Performing arts graduates in transition to independent professional practice and Master’s students from the Audiovisual and Performing Arts department. Both groups already have their own artistic experience and are particularly open to collaborative, interdisciplinary working methods and new forms of cooperation with the audience.

The Vilnius University is the partner for the development of all project phases. The Faculty of Communication in the Department of Digital Cultures and Communication pursues, among other things, the research focus on digital narratives and storytelling. The focus is on understanding the role of narratives and storytelling in shaping individual and collective identity in digital, hybrid and even non-digital contexts and assessing their impact on contemporary societies. The department focuses on developing research frameworks for digital communication to provide theoretically grounded and practically applicable approaches as well as to analyze and interpret findings about the interaction between people and information in the digital realm.

Funded by the European Union. However, the views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Creative Europe Desk Culture. Neither the European Union nor the funding body can be held responsible.