We Are All Emotional

The festival of performance art We Are All Emotional will take place in Prague, Czech Republic from December 3–4, 2021. The event is being organized by tranzit.cz / Matter of Art in collaboration with Divadlo X10 and co-curated by members of the tranzit.org network. 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 Divadlo X10—one of Prague’s most prolific theatre spaces for contemporary drama. The joint event heralds the upcoming 20th anniversary of tranzit.org, which will be celebrated in 2022. Admission to the festival is free of charge.

Emotion is an intensity that takes place between people, concepts, and objects. Both cognitive and sensory, it moves around and sticks. It arises in a crowd, originating from no particular consciousness. As it circulates in the world, it is difficult to define. #MeToo, climate change, fascism, antifascism, racism, refugees/migrants, cancel culture. Today’s political culture often seems to be driven by irrational, fictional fears and anxieties. We feel empty, anxious, angry, fatigued, harmed, violated. Often it is our personal suffering and trauma speaking. But is that a good compass? It seems we live in an era of heightened emotions which are often labeled as toxic and appear not to lead anywhere. Emotions—be they highs or lows—are coded into the social media platforms on which we spend so much of our lives and which thrive on our emotional engagement, as our own emoticons remind us every day. The boundaries between the private and the public move too quickly for us to track. We react emotionally to what is happening around us, but sometimes it seems as if the ways in which we react make us incapable of dealing with the problems at hand. We shift from politics to personal and back. Have the political passions that were associated with 20th-century revolutions and social strife been exhausted? Can we forgive each other? And whom should we not forgive? What emotions can unite us, and which emotions divide us? Which emotions should we trust to be our guides? Can we feel hopeful again Throughout 2021, we have been publishing interviews with the participating artists conducted by the tranzit.org curators. The interviews that have been released so far are available on the Matter of Art website. Subscribe to our newsletter and receive the latest information about the festival. 

View the Facebook event.

Organized by: tranzit.cz / Matter of Art in cooperation with Divadlo X10

Curated by: tranzit.org / Judit Angel, Dóra Hegyi, Livia Pancu, Georg Schöllhammer, Tereza Stejskalová & Attila Tordai-S

Participating artists: Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara (Cuba), Larisa David (Romania), Helena Eribenne (Austria), Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová (Czech Republic), Kolektiv Prádelna/Laundry Collective (Czech Republic/Poland), Hajnal Németh (Hungary), Ovid Pop (Romania), Maja Štefančíková (Slovakia), Doris Uhlich (Austria), Zorka Wollny (Poland)

Main partner: ERSTE Foundation

Media partners: A2 / Alarm, ART ANTIQUES, Artalk.cz, Artyčok.tv, ČRo Vltava, Flash Art Czech & Slovak Edition, Kapitál