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Common
Stories

COMMON STORIES focuses on the emerging artists who will shape the European scene in the coming years.  Supported with a variety of tools, references and skills. through the lab programme, the selected artists will be better positioned to create strong and engaging narratives with greater visibility. Challenging representations and imaginations, they will inspire other vocations and generate interest coming from wider circles of presenters and audiences

Over eight weeks in four different countries, COMMON LAB will provide opportunities for selected artists to:

  • Exchange, share and learn, through a programme of activities that includes lectures and talks by guest speakers; workshops and masterclasses in relation to a specific context or to the work of the selected artists; practical sessions on author status and professional environment.
  • Visit four different cities and meet with the teams of the host organizations; with guest artistic mentors; with local communities; with different working contexts.
  • Research their own projects, through individual and collective working sessions with guest mentors.
  • Pitch their projects to professionals in the context of an international festival.

The programme will be adapted to the profiles and expectations of the participants.

Following an open call in September 2024, eight artists were selected from over 280 applicants. The selection committee included Hortense Archambault (MC93), Carla Nobre Sousa and David Cabecinha (Alkantara), Kerstin Ortmeier and Gerhardt Haag (africologne), Virginie Dupray (general coordination) and Raquel Lima (advisory committee).

The artists selected for the project live and work in Europe, and explore the shifting notions of identity and diversity in a rapidly changing European society.

From May to October, COMMON LAB 2025 travelled between Lisbon, Cologne, Cairo and Bobigny.

  • From 5 to 18 May 2025, Lisbon, Portugal
  • From 2 to 15 June 2025, Cologne, Germany
  • From 8 to 19 October 2025, Cairo, Egypt
  • From 20 October to 1 Novemer 2025, Bobigny, France