In an edition dedicated to Progress, Imaginarius – Santa Maria da Feira International Street Theatre Festival is preparing to discuss the role of artists in the future, in a working conference that will bring together six experts from different areas, on 24 May, at 10:30 am, at the Imaginarius Creation Centre. Free to attend and open to all interested parties, this meeting is part of the programme of the festival, which takes place between 22 and 25 May.
Drawing from different fields of knowledge, expertise, sensibilities and identities, participants are challenged to imagine the future, who the artists of that future are and what role artists will play in that future. It is an exchange of perspectives and ideas, in a conference in the form of a working session, which fuels the desire to build a future dreamed of in freedom.
Moderated by Cláudia Galhós, journalist, specialist in performing arts and writer, the conference “Imaginarius Communities: Artists and the future seen from here? What is the role of artists in the future?” features António Brito Guterres, social worker and researcher in Urban Studies, curator of the Iminente Festival; Gaya Medeiros, dancer, director, producer and founder of the BRABA platform; Patrícia Correia, coordinator of the Champalimaud Foundation’s art-science programme, Bridges to the Unknown: Crossing Art & Science; Pedro Barreiro, director, actor, stage designer, playwright, producer, programmer and curator; and Rebecca Moradalizadeh, Portuguese-Iranian visual artist, performer and art educator.
It is worth remembering that Progress is the theme that concludes a trilogy that has marked the path of this festival, which in 2023 was dedicated to the Dream and in 2024 to Freedom. The theme proposed for this edition, and which inspired this conference, refers to the desire to imagine the future from the perspective of artistic communities and to envision the future of artists.
During the festival, artists and programmers will meet again at the Imaginarius Creation Centre and at Espaço PRO for networking moments, pitch sessions, thematic conversations and sharing of experiences, with a view to building solid partnerships for artistic creation, network dissemination and international circulation.
The first part of the programme designed for professionals will take place on 22 May, at 6pm, at Espaço PRO, next to Orfeão da Feira, where the official opening of the festival will take place, followed by a networking event for artists and programmers. On the 23rd, at 9:30am, Imaginarius creations and the projects in competition will be presented to an audience of professionals, in a meeting that will take place at the Imaginarius Creation Centre.
Returning to Santa Maria da Feira between 22 and 25 May, Imaginarius continues to assert itself as a provocative festival, designed to unsettle, stimulate critical thinking and awaken consciences, and it is also an invitation to contemplation, dreaming, freedom and hope.
In its 24th edition, Imaginarius invites the public to a multicultural mosaic with 200 artists from 17 countries, who will present 43 shows and installations on 15 stages in the city’s historic centre. After Dream (2023) and Freedom (2024), Imaginarius is preparing to question the legacy of Progress – social, political, cultural and technological – in an edition marked by the premiere of the first creation of the Imaginarius Creation Centre, the festival’s “home”, installed in the former municipal slaughterhouse.
The programme for this edition focuses on the intersection of street arts and contemporary circus with media arts, dance and music, paying particular attention to the theme of gastronomy, consolidating the “Santa Maria da Feira, UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy” seal.
