A Manual on Work and Happiness is an international collaborative project coordinated by Artemrede (in association with the municipalities of Alcobaça and Montijo – Portugal), with Pergine Spettacolo Aperto (Italy), L’arboreto - Teatro Dimora di Mondaino (Italy) and the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Patras (Greece) as partners, under the artistic direction of Mala Voadora theatre company and in collaboration with Catalan playwriter Pablo Gisbert.
This international collaborative artistic investigation takes up a big societal issue - the relation between work and happiness – into the performing arts practice, creating an original performance with the direct participation of local communities of three countries. The project uses the indisputable social, economic and political urgency of the topic (work and happiness) as a tool to trigger the engagement of audiences and non-audiences, in an attempt to draw people closer to the arts.
The project encompasses five components: the launch of a capacity-building network named ‘Southern Coalition’, in order to strengthen the operational capacity of the cultural agents of the three countries involved; the organization of a multidisciplinary International Seminar on Work and Happiness, which will be the artistic start point of the project; the writing of a theatre play in the form of an ‘Instruction Manual’ on how to be happy at work or through work, which aims for the kind of universality usually credited to an IKEA-Manual to build a piece of furniture; participatory work with local communities in each country during four artistic residencies each one leading to one possible interpretation of the Instruction Manual, which results in a public performance staging a subjective approach to an apparently objective item. An online platform where interaction on the theme takes place and where ALL the content of the project is OPENLY accessible (much like Instruction Manuals themselves).