PROtotype for Sustainable residencies in PERipheries
Peripheries are places of solidarity that partners in PROSPER aim to explore by creating connections between environmentally vulnerable regions, through a series of transnational cultural collaborations.
The main priorities are to engage artists and local communities in two regions with major environmental significance; namely the island of Evia in Greece that suffered destructive wildfires in 2021, and Lake Ohrid in N.Macedonia, which has suffered degradation due to human activity endangering its endemic importance. Both regions are affected by COVID, where culture and tourism workers are searching for a way forward to sustainable and inclusive futures.
The objectives are to contribute to the development of models of transnational collaboration that would enable stronger connections between European artists and organizations, diversified audiences as local communities and sustainable cultural tourism sectors; as well as enhance capacity building for diversity driven project management for grassroots organizations.
PROSPER involves 5 partner organizations (LOOP, Eho Animato, Peripetija, Oyoun, and Local Development Agency - Struga), 6 associate partners and more than 40 participants who will together create residencies, collective and mutual learning experiences between artists & local audiences, transnational co-productions in performing & visual arts, capacity building training for cultural and tourism workers and a prototype of sustainable and inclusive residencies in peripheries.
The aim is to enhance international cultural collaboration, methodologies of integrating environmental issues into artistic practice, stronger collaboration between art and tourism, empowered local audiences, visibility of European artists, and stronger capacities for more impactful projects that enable sustainable and inclusion driven project management. This aim will be presented to the public in the form of 2 residencies,1 prototype, 2 1-day festivals, 2 co-production performances, 1 exhibition, 1 audiowalk, 2 publications, 12 workshops, 5 capacity building trainings, and 10 presentations.
On the 21st of May 2023, all partners came together in person to prepare the plan for the upcoming 2.5 years. This project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Old Saybrook
Old Saybrook is a co-production between Peripetija Production and the Comedy Theatre, created as part of the PROSPER project!
Set by a lake, the play follows the lives of three married couples. But this is more than just a story about everyday people – it's a co-creation designed to spark critical thinking about environmental issues, opening up a dialogue on the challenges and impact of human activity on nature.
Inspired by the artist residency held in Ohrid, the production embraces an eco-conscious approach by using recycled and repurposed materials for both set and costume design. This effort aims to reduce our carbon footprint and promote a more sustainable, green approach to theatre-making.
PERIPHERIES
PROSPER residency group exhibition in Skopje
As part of the premiere of the theatre performance Old Saybrook, the international visual art exhibition titled Peripheries was presented on March 25th and 26th, 2025 at Comedy Theatre in Skopje.
The exhibition featured works by eight international artists created during an artist residency in Ohrid in April 2024. Inspired by the unique natural and cultural landscape of Lake Ohrid, the artists explored themes of identity, borders, memory, and ecology—each reflecting on what it means to exist and create on the periphery, whether geographically, socially, or artistically.
PERIPHERIES
PROSPER residency group exhibition in Ohrid
Eight international artists stayed in Ohrid in April 2024 as part of the project PROSPER: PROtotypes for Sustainable Residencies in PERipheries. During their stay, they immersed themselves in the surroundings, interacting with both the natural and urban environment around the lake. The idea behind the residency was to inspire artists to find connections between their artistic practice, the fragile environment of the lake Ohrid and its inhabitants. The artists in residence responded with photographs, sculptures, sounds, poems and interventions on found objects. Traces of their artistic research were displayed in this group exhibition. Parts of the program were also happening at the lake itself and around the city.
Marija Vidović, Wandering Ohrid, series of murals
Wandering Ohrid is a series of murals inspired by Ohrid. They are located in various places and are inviting anyone interested to discover the city while searching for them.
Marija is muralist and illustrator from Belgrade. She combines abstract and figurative elements into captivating compositions and color combinations that often portray a story or an experience.
Julia Eichler, Го сакам Охрид / billboard, papier-mache-wall-imprints
Julia Eichler is a visual artist from Germany / Berlin. In Ohrid she worked in abandoned buildings, where she moulded traces of time and human intervention on architectural elements, using papier-mâché as a carrier material. The exhibited work is a huge love letter to Ohrid with a little stony subtext.
Kata Győrfi, the birth of the gnat, poem
Kata Győrfi is a Hungarian poet from Romania. In her poems she experiments with perspectives and experiences of non-human entities. Each poem serves as a portal into alternate worlds, into fantasies of ecological apocalypse and the emergence of new orders. The poems ultimately circle back to the acknowledgment of nature's inherent indifference to human consciousness and intent. They thematize the emotional and existential dimensions of environmental crises, expressing grief, outrage, hope, and resilience in the face of ecological challenges.
Qafar Rzayev, A Plea from Lake Ohrid, plastic bottle, cork, rope, paper
A Plea from Lake Ohrid, involved transforming discarded plastic bottles into unique invitations, highlighting the need to protect Lake Ohrid's ecosystem and create interaction between neighbors by passing on the bottles.
Qafar Rzayev, is a multidisciplinary artist from Ganja, Azerbaijan. His artistic practice often engages with conceptual art and social interventions.
Yara Asmar, To live by a body of water is to forget it exists, video installation
A series of videopoems and micro-compositions constructed around field recordings of the lake Ohrid.
Yara is a musician and puppeteer based in Beirut, Lebanon. She incorporates accordion, metallophone and electronics in her work.
Claudio Beorchia, From here, the lake is different, photographic series
The photo series created during the residency, through the involvement of some of the town's residents, shows a more intimate and daily side of Ohrid and its lake.
Claudio Beorchia is an interdisciplinary and site-responsive artist who often works through relational and participatory practices.
The New Liquidity (Selma Boskailo and Anders Ehlin), Underwater Cosmologies - The People of Eels, guided Audio Experience on Ohrid Lake (3D audio, custom built mobile app, mobile phones, headphones)
Underwater Cosmologies - The People of Eels uses the migratory cycle of the Ohrid eel to focus on Lake Ohrid's environmental landscape and challenges, as well as the historical narratives of the region. By narrating the story from the perspective of an eel, they want to investigate the lake as a deep archive and examine water’s fluid heritage as a place of geo-cultural and human-non-human memory.
Selma Boskailo and Anders Ehlin are multidisciplinary artists based in Berlin. Together they explore the intersection of sound, territory and space through The New Liquidity, a platform and collective for artistic and curatorial practices. As part of the residency program they developed a site-specific slowfloat (a guided audio experience on the lake) under the framework of their ongoing project Underwater Cosmologies. Under the project framework and in response to the climate crisis, they use participatory soundwalks, audio guides and installations, to provoke critical discourse and imaginative possibilities around the future of freshwater and marine ecosystems.
