Sun 21/6 11:00
Ferst Dadler & Loré Lixenberg: Zahradníiíiíiíiíi republika

An original performative project by the international artistic collective Ferst Dadler and British opera singer and sound artist Loré Lixenberg, presenting a pair of unique live encounters that explore the idea of a republic through sound, movement, and dance.

Zahradníiíiíiíiíi republika is a rhizomatic, nomadic garden republic that moves through different locations: it was first established in the Franciscan Garden in Prague, then relocated to the gardens of Troja Chateau, and in June it will find its place in the garden of the Pardubice City Gallery (GAMPA). The indoor “conference” part of the project, ˈkonfɛrɛnt͡sɛ, will subsequently move to Divadlo 29 on 25 June.

Through a series of two interconnected live encounters, the artists invite audiences to actively participate in performative situations in which sound becomes a tool for perceiving and understanding relationships between a space and its inhabitants.

Zahradníiíiíiíiíi republika
11:00–17:00 / GAMPA – Pardubice City Gallery / free admission

A performative gathering in the gallery garden exploring alternative forms of living together, where listening and imagination become shared civic practices.

The gardeners of Zahradníiíiíiíiíi republika invite everyone to become citizens of this newly emerging country.

Throughout the day, the gallery garden will transform into a living space – a republic without fixed borders or predetermined roles. Visitors are invited to enter the garden as citizens of a newly forming community and, together with the artists, help shape its character through encounters, collective pizza baking, and attentive listening to the garden and its inhabitants.

Do not expect to be entertained. Ask not what the republic can do for you; ask what you can do for the republic.

Everyone is welcome to participate for as long as they wish.

In 2023 and 2024, the Ferst Dadler collective realised a similar project in the gardens of Troja Chateau and the Franciscan Garden in central Prague, followed by its indoor “conference” component at Palác Akropolis. This performance later gave rise to the radio work Zahradníiíiíiíiíi republika, which won the Music category at the international Prix Italia 2025 festival in Naples, one of Europe’s most prestigious showcases of radio and television production.

The Ferst Dadler collective brings together artists whose work moves freely across the broadest possible spectrum of contemporary performing arts, without any clear dominance of traditional genres. Through interdisciplinary and genre-defying projects, they often encourage reflection on social practices, treating performance as a space for deep collective thinking that transcends language and conventional definitions.

Loré Lixenberg is a British mezzo-soprano, sound artist, and performer whose work radically expands the possibilities of the voice across opera, experimental music, sound art, and performance. She explores the voice as a physical, relational, and imaginative medium, dissolving boundaries between human, non-human, and machine-generated sound. Her practice moves between classical vocal technique, extended vocal methods, improvisation, humour, electronics, and multimedia structures. Lixenberg has performed internationally in opera houses, theatres, and festivals, interpreting works by composers including Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti, Pauline Oliveros, Trevor Wishart, Georges Aperghis, Harrison Birtwistle, and Phill Niblock. As a creator, she develops participatory and digital-analogue operatic systems and pursues research connecting artificial intelligence, medieval music, and the principles of Ars Nova.

www.lorelixenberg.art
www.ferstdadler.tumblr.com

Organised by the Centre for Open Culture.

The event takes place at the City Gallery Pardubice (GAMPA).
Free admission.