One and a half million Steps over the Borders

30 years after the Pan-European Picnic on the Hungarian-Austrian border – the “first brick taken from the Iron Curtain” we launch a collaborative investigation around the hopes and potentials of freedom connected to the System Change exploring their relevance today.

The project brings together perspectives of people from countries on both sides of the former Iron Curtain, from border zones and social peripheries, from Western welfare states and multi-ethnic Central European regions, including artists, filmmakers, researchers, elderly and young people who were not even born in 1989. We want to overcome usual narratives about progression and divisions and open an investigation on present challenges to freedom.

The title and inspiration of the project stem from the popular nature discovery series “One and a half million steps in Hungary” (on television from 1979 to 1988), which showed a small camera crew hiking across the country. The series depicts Hungary “from below”, adopting the perspective of a tourist group. Our project will similarly take hiking as a tool of learning in a slow pace, a physical experience of the environment and a way of creating polyvocal narratives beyond usual ways of representation. We undertake border crossings not just physically along the Iron Curtain, but also between institutions, artistic fields and heritage interpretation.

The main research and presentation tool is a wandering TV studio, which functions as a theatrical toolbox, a nomadic and self-driven research format as well as a trompe-l’œil: a critical and satirical reflection on contemporary mass media which is, rather than connecting publics, dividing them into social bubbles. The project links hiking as a learning method with traditions of wandering theatres. It connects with initiatives and formats locally thereby interweaving community performance with academic research, video interviews and practical research workshops into collectively-produced wandering talk shows.

School of Arts of the University of Nova Gorica

(Partner) Nova Gorica

All projects of Slovenian producer

MAST – Master Module in Art, Science and Technology

Foreign producers in the supported project

Kulturalis Orokseg Menedzserek Egyesulete (leader)

Hungary (EU)
Kozmu Egyesulet / Kozmu Association (partner)

Hungary (EU)
OHO - Offenes Haus Oberwart (partner)

Austria (EU)
Public Sector (partner)

Denmark (EU)
UT Connewitz e.V. (partner)

Germany (EU)

Funded projects

MUSICVILLE – Green European Opera

Operation Nova

Kino x Games

FASIH - Future Art and Science Industrial Heritage

Cultural BEES

Is this us?

Climate Art Fusion Caravane (CARAVANE)

Moving Balkans

Youth Art for the Earth (YAFE)

Shadow Pandemic: Hidden Voices

Open House Europe (OHEu)

Third Stage

VERSOPOLIS – WHERE POETRY LIVES

December: Uncomfortable Beings, Azra, Best Imaginary Friends Forever

LINA - Learn, Interact, and Network in Architecture

Reactivating unused urban spaces through architecture and arts (ReCITYing)

Art Nouveau: a new EUtopia

Creative Industries Development Centre (KUL)

Web 3.0 Accelerator for Sustainable Cultural Tourism (Web3Tour)

Studiotopia: Enter the Symbiocene with Arts and Science (Studiotopia 2)

Bio Awakening - developing bio-art practices in Western Balkan

TestArt

GREENSTAGE

Connecting Emerging Literary Artists (CELA)

Transmedia stories of insularity (TRAST)

Female Digital Creativity (FLUX)

Planet Hope (New European Fiction) (PH)

More than a Book (MTaS)

Our Little Library: Through literary bridges to reading adventures (OLLLB)

Connected with Books (CWB)

Exploring Expanded Publishing: EX-Pub

Thinking Publishing (ThinkPub)

Novel Europe (NovelEU)

REVIVE

Temporama: Mini Slate 2023

Studi Virc: Mini Slate 2023

The 10th and 11th edition of FeKK - Ljubljana Short Film Festival

The 20th and 21st Kino Otok - Isola Cinema International Film Festival

20. and 21. ANIMATEKA International animated film festival

Film in Hospital 2.0

EU Youth Cinema: Green Deal 2024-2026

Cinema without barriers (CWB)

Literary Agent Platform: Capacity building (LAP CB)

Tramal Films Mini Slate 22 (TFMini22)

Vertigo Slate 2022: Chestnuts, Memory of Autumn Mists, OHO, Splashing around

Staragara slate 22

Our Little Library: Literary exchanges (OLL LE)

Testing Ground (TestG)

Better Live

Variola - Dark Spring TV series

SEMA

Paradiso

Leave the door open

The Big Green

The Long Way Down

New approaches for local media (NEWLOCAL)

Life Long Burning – Futures Lost and Found (LLB3)

Time For Live Art (LIVETIME)

Women Power in Comics (WOMCOM)

Movement, Digital Intelligence and Interactive Audience (MODINA)

Fortissimo (FF)

Spring Cleaning

Animation Festival Network

CulturalDeTour - Sustainable Cultural Tourism by Design Driven Innovation

Building the future of democracy through art, science and technology (EUDigitalDeal)

CEE Animation Forum 2021

The Museum of the Commons. Towards a Healthier Arts Ecosystem (MoC)

ACT: Art, Climate, Transition

Baths, gothic churches and miners’ houses

Fake Lies

THE FILM CORNER RELOADED - A CULTURAL APPROACH

CINEMINI EUROPE

FC Freedom

Body

Movies in Motion

Voix de la Poesie Europeenne

Trust me, I'm an artist

The Faces Behind the Nose - Promoting Hospital Clowning as a Recognized Genre of Performing Arts

SYMBOLS - Culture of Death& Cultural Life: New audiences and creations around European Cemeteries!