Ark
Just before the pandemic in 2020 Quarantine was commissioned by ‘Moving Borders’, a project led by a consortium of theatres, festivals and arts organisations in Strasbourg, France; Athens, Greece; Utrecht, the Netherlands; Dresden and Mülheim, Germany; Porto, Portugal; and Warsaw, Poland.
I came up with the idea to make an Ark in each of the cities, working collaboratively with Quarantine to flesh out the concept. The Ark’s were to be a place of exchange, unlikely encounters, conversations, dissent. But also, a place of refuge, somewhere people could gather together. Each Ark was created by local artists, activists, and architects, and responded to each city’s individual context and geographical location. Inevitably, no two Arks were the same, but were united by the notion of the ‘boarders’ that exist in each place, in every sense, effecting the lives of the people living there.
Coming off the back of Brexit and the (continuing) global debates around climate change, Ark hoped to create the circumstances for a temporary democratic space.
The project was hugely affected by local lockdowns and travel restrictions. Our hope was to visit each city but instead we relied on Zoom to curate from a distance – supporting each city from our living rooms to build and deliver their Ark overseas.
More information about the project here.
