The Thing is an automated and hybrid form between performance, workshop and journey. Over 4 episodes, each about 4 hours long, The Thing takes its participants on an exploration of the overlap between things which matter to the world, and a thing each of us could set into motion at any moment. Doing The Thing is about creating the best possible conditions to take a leap of both faith and imagination, daring to enact another possible version of oneself. To decisively step out of one’s comfort zone by, as David Graeber coins it, “insisting on acting as if one is already free.” In The Thing, no charismatic leader stands in your way. The only ones present are a group of artists who open a suitcase and follow a wild mix of different triggers as a guide.

Participants of Riga workshop: Melanie Frances Phillips (London), Antra Leite Straume (Riga), Mapengo Námoda (Maputo), Barbara Lehtna (Tallinn), Paulius Markevičius (Vilnius), Ina Sladič (Berlin), Asher Simiso Gamedze (Cape Town) among oters.

Automatic Worksop is part of the Festival School – an exchange platform devised by Homo Novus festival in collaboration with Daniel Blanga Gubbay, aleppo.eu (Brussels), Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei, New World Summit (Tirana), Ant Hampton and Christophe Meyerhans (Brussels).