On the Other Side: A performance asking where our prisons end and where they begin - inside us, between us, around us.

“On the Other Side” is the next step in Jubilo Foundation’s three-year research on the themes of freedom and seclusion. How can artists become active witnesses of encounters (e.g. with migrants or behind prison walls) and, through performative tools, transform the themes, the stories and the faces met on their journey to make them speak to a broader audience?

The research started by interrogating the theme of ‘personal prisons’, that is ‘prisons’ no longer perceived as imposed from the outside, by someone else (for example public institutions), but as often unconscious restrictions that we impose on ourselves, unaware of our social and cultural conditioning. Starting from the individual dimension, the group opened their observation towards a broader horizon, contextualizing their questions about the current condition of our society. On one hand, we observe a world with clearly defined boundaries, where conflict grows and separation is given as an answer. On the other hand, we see a constant need to pursue relations, to open up possibilities and to search for an authentic dialogue between one person and another.

The textual and thematic material presented in this performance comes from various sources, including interviews, literary sources, and texts written by the performers themselves. As theatrical explorers, Jubilo have been developing their work from the microscopic to the macroscopic plane, using video footage and installation elements as lenses to help them increasingly define the core of the theme and its repercussions for our daily lives.

The title of the work should not be interpreted as a definition. Instead, it should be seen as a question, a suggestion of direction, a dynamic of living change ‒ both in the external world and within ourselves.

The performance piece is co-financed by the OFF POLSKA programme, the Municipality of Wrocław and Erasmus+ as part of Initiative ‒ Inclusion ‒ Interaction.
OFF POLSKA is supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sport.