Lead Events and the Prague Quadrennial 2015 Preparation UnderwayThe last phase of intense preparations for the Prague Quadrennial 2015 (PQ '15), which will take place June 18 - 28, 2015, has begun. The April Spatial Curation symposium is drawing near and the international three-year scenography research and art project, SharedSpace, is in full swing. The Prague Quadrennial 2015 presents a broad variety of countries and regions from all continents. Countries attending for the 13th time include: Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, Holland, and Poland. Canada will have two representatives with Quebec in addition to Canada. The same applies for Spain - this Southern European country will additionally be represented by the region of Catalonia. Three newcomers, Lichtenstein, Macao SAR China, and Morocco, will enrich PQ '15 with their participation. Peru and Egypt will return, having missed in 2011. Currently, 50 countries and regions have confirmed participation in the main sections; the total number of those presenting will be higher. Participation will increase with the additional sections Space (an exhibition of theatre architecture), Objects (an exhibition of requisites from the entire world), Makers (an exhibition where cooking will take place), and the SpaceLab student project. The Spatial Curation symposium, which will take place April 2 - 4, 2014 in Prague, has set an ambitious goal. To explore the curation of scenography as a strategy that must find new approach for every exhibition, different language of telling a story about a specific scenographic project always anew. This meeting of artists and professionals is open not only to PQ '15 participants, but also to other designers, theorists, and curators working with scenography. The symposium will explore how to exhibit scenography and exhibiting with scenography. It will look into curating through space and design, and at space and design as curatorial tools. Scenography will not only be explored as something to display but as a dramaturgical agent of an exhibit, a tool for creating performative spaces, specific environments for unfolding of the core idea of the scenographic project. Here the scenography curator is a storyteller, an editor, a dramaturg and a scenographer -- as the person creating the dialogue between the stage and that what is absent. The problem of the public space, as a political space for which every person shares the responsibility, will be opened by the Belgian philosopher and activist Lieven De Cauter. Other speakers on the symposium will include commissioners from the PQ '15 Countries and Regions -- Music Weather Politics section: Aby Cohen, Simon Banham, Jirí Herman, or Serge von Arx, commissioner of the Space exhibition, further theatre professionals and theorists from around the world will also present. The representative environment of the baroque Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace will provide the Spatial Curation symposium with unusual facilities. The speakers' new, innovative and perhaps provocative ideas will resonate from the walls of one of the most beautiful Prague palaces with a unique ceiling fresco from 1737, depicting a gathering of the Olympic gods. The symposium will thus connect the old and the new, tradition and progress. The Prague Quadrennial 2015 will be in the scope of the SharedSpace: Music Weather Politics 2013-2016 project will occupy several Prague historic buildings all at once (besides the Colleredo-Mansfeld Palace, also the Clam-Gallas Palace, the Prague Crossroads -- the Church of St. Anne or the Czech Center). "PQ '15 will take place in many places in the very center of Prague and invites creators to think locally in relation to the city (to devote themselves to what is characteristic for the given place), both while preparing exhibitions and when exhibiting at specific places in Prague," says Sodja Lotker, the PQ artistic director. The Prague Quadrennial 2015 Countries and Regions exposition will be installed in the famous Prague Palace and will thus kindle the emergence of new contexts of unexpected connections and surprising contrasts. Praguers, tourists, visitors of PQ '15 will get a unique chance to test the potential of public space, as several expositions from the Countries and Regions Section will be installed directly in Prague squares, corners, and streets. The confrontation with the viewer, who thus -- knowingly or unknowingly -- becomes part-creator of a work of art, is also one of the challenges of city culture and tolerance of its inhabitants. Such events are a test of public space as a possible place for meeting, communication, sharing. Besides curators of national expositions, the professional and broader public is also welcome to attend the Spatial Curation symposium. Visitors will be able to register on the spot. Entrance fee is voluntary. Spatial Curation symposium is part of the SharedSpace: Music Weather Politics 2013-2016 three-year international scenography project, the aim of which, like the SpaceLab educational program, is to organize symposiums, workshops, and exhibitions. Events for this year will take place in cooperation with partners in the Netherlands, Poland, Great Britain, Macedonia, Finland, Switzerland, Israel, and Latvia. It will take place June 11 - 20, 2014 in Santarcangelo, Italy. The festival will resonate with the themes of Music Weather Politics, which will serve as a leitmotif for the whole SharedSpace project and likewise also the Prague Quadrennial 2015. All students, young artists, and art professionals from across the fields of visual and performing arts can apply for the SharedSpace symposia and workshops. SpaceLab, the educational part of the project, will support international interaction between schools, students, and professionals from the field. The nearest SpaceLab events will take place in Prague and London. Students from DAMU Prague are organizing the Zlomvaz (tr. Break a leg) festival May 7 - 10, in which two partners from SharedSpace -- The HKU Theatre University of the Arts, Utrecht and The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama -- will participate. The SpaceLab gathering in London, organized in cooperation with the Accidental Festival, will take place May 22 - 25, 2014. All SpaceLab performances in Prague and London are also open to the broader public. Prague Quadrennial is organized and funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and realized by the Arts and Theatre Institute. SharedSpace is organized by Prague Quadrennial(CZ) in cooperation with: Finnish National Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma Theatre; New Theatre Institute of Latvia; Santarcangelo dei Teatri; Victoria and Albert Museum; HKU Theatre, University of the Arts, Utrecht; Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague; The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama; Centre for Creative Actions IMPACT Macedonia; Center for Polish Scenography, Silesian Museum; Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute; Norwegian Theatre Academy/Østfold University College; The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia; School of Visual Theatre Jerusalem. Partner of the PQ '15 is the City Gallery Prague with the support of the Culture Program of the European Union. 
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