Ora et lege

26/08/2026

Borderland Forest Spells is coming back to Broumov. 🌿

The project returns to the Czech–Polish borderlands with 𝘓𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘴 by Agnieszka Bua and Liene Jurgelane, presented as part of the Festival of Memory at HOPRICH from 10–13 September 2026.

What could it mean to form new kinds of kinship? Kinship beyond borders and beyond binaries? To become more q***r in our relation to land, by forming relations out of care and choice, instead of ancestral roots? To sense plants, animals, trees, ghosts and spirits as part of a wider circle of belonging and remembering?

In February 2026, Agnieszka Bułacik, Hania Grześkiewicz and Liene Jurgelāne spent a month in the Czech-Polish borderlands of Broumovsko as artists-in-residence. They walked, recorded, sang and listened with the land, forests, humans and trees. Tracing stories of displacement and re-rooting, they followed the echoes of migration in this landscape and in their own bodies, asking what myths might be seedling in the mountains and valleys that welcomed them.

Agnieszka Bułacik is an artist, researcher and facilitator working with voice, collective singing and embodied performance. Her practice explores relationality, presence and collective experience, and she is a co-founder of New Visions, an arts and education collective supporting women and q***r artists and activists from Eastern Europe. She is currently a PhD candidate in Arts & Education, researching collective artistic practices and learning through the body.
www.agnieszkabulacik.com

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Liene Jurgelāne is an artist, facilitator, curator and anthropologist, originally from Latvia and now based in Denmark. Her practice weaves together performance art, artistic research and multispecies collaborations, rooted in earth-based wisdom traditions, especially those from the Baltic region. Through sensory walks, participatory performances, workshops, festival programmes and medicinal gardens, she creates spaces where humans and more-than-humans can meet in reciprocal exchange.
www.lienejurgelane.com

30/05/2026

Listening with Agnieszka Bua, Liene Jurgelane, and Hanna Grześkiewicz continues.

At the second edition of ROOTED Festival, taking place at Institut for (X) on 13–14 June 2026, the sound installation "In the Hollow We Remember" will be presented. Rooted in the forests and mountains of the Sudetenland (Czech-Polish borderlands), it explores the q***ring of relationality with land marked by displacement and migration, mourns ecological devastation, and imagines new forms of kinship across species and borders. The installation invites the listener to see the forest as a living archive in which plants, mountains, winds, waters, and human stories co-exist and co-sound, becoming witnesses, collaborators, and co-conspirators in times of ecological crisis.

The constructed wooden hollows represent linden trees, whose presence invokes Eastern European symbols of femininity, while the soundscape is grounded in the Sudetenland through rural Eastern European singing traditions, interwoven with field recordings and storytelling.

The work is an iteration of "Borderlands Forest Spells: Listening with the Land That Remembers", a project developed through a residency with Ora et lege at Klášter Broumov - Vzdělávací a kulturní centrum in February 2026.

Supported by Královéhradecký kraj.

For more information about the festival and its programme, visit
https://www.rootedfestival.com/

10/05/2026

We are glad to see Maia Naveriani featured in the recent Frieze review of the exhibition 'Afterimages', presented within the ‘Constellations’ programme at IMPORT EXPORT in Warsaw, hosted by Bukia Vakhania and Harlesden High Street. Bringing together works by Alice Bucknell, Echo Seireeni and Maia Naveriani, the exhibition explores saturation and “how a hyper-accelerated present flooded with data, images and ideological noise destabilizes both vision and the politics of viewing". The exhibition is on view until 23 May, 2026.

Maia Naveriani’s work 'Word of Mouth', presented here for the second time, was originally commissioned for Ora et lege III: Saïat Nova – New Hour (2025), curated by Elene Abashidze.

At IMPORT EXPORT, Warsaw, a group show examines how technological, digital and linguistic saturation destabilizes our perception

16/03/2026

A beautiful reflection on the final listening session of the Borderland Forest Spells residency, written by An Hoprich Smékalová for Naše Broumovsko. 🌿

Lekce o tom, jak si více naslouchat a vytvářet předivo vztahů.

04/03/2026

After one month of listening with the forests, mountains, rivers and communities of the Czech–Polish borderlands, we gathered at HOPRICH to close the residency with a Final Listening Session – a shared space of sound, voice and deep listening.

Thank you to everyone who came to be with us in silence, sound, songs and spells. For the moments of being together.

Photo: Vašek Matějíček

Borderland Forest Spells
Broumov Monastery (CZ)
1–28 February 2026

Residents: Agnieszka Bua, Liene Jurgelane, Hanna Grześkiewicz

Curated by Ora et lege
Producer Zaneta Vavrova
Graphic design Jakub Samek
Production Anna Iljašenko, Vašek Matějíček

Organised by Klášter Broumov - Vzdělávací a kulturní centrum. Supported by Culture Moves Europe, Státní fond kultury and Královéhradecký kraj.

Special thanks to Jakub, Kryštof, Father Ruda, Jena, Hana, Bára, Adam & Anna.

26/02/2026

Short interview by Naše Broumovsko with Liene Jurgelane, Agnieszka Bua and Hanna Grześkiewicz about their Borderland Forest Spells residency at Klášter Broumov - Vzdělávací a kulturní centrum and listening to the forests and landscape of the Czech-Polish borderland.

Rozhovor s rezidentkami Literárního domku.

21/02/2026

Borderland Forest Spells
Final Listening Session
Agnieszka Bułacik, Liene Jurgelāne, Hanna Grześkiewicz

27 02 2026 at HOPRICH
16:30 Doors Open
17:00~18:15 Listening Session

After one month of listening with the forests, mountains, trees, rivers, and humans of the Czech-Polish borderlands, the artists-in-residence are inviting for their final public listening session.

“During the residency we have been walking, recording, singing, and listening with the land. We have been tracing stories of displacement and re-rooting, following the echoes of migration in this landscape and in our own bodies, asking what myths might be seedling in the mountains and valleys that welcomed us.

This session is a shared listening space in which we will invite you to explore collectively what it could mean to form new kinds of kinship. Kinship beyond borders and beyond binaries. To become more q***r in our relation to land, by forming relations out of care and choice, instead of ancestral roots. To sense plants, animals, trees, ghosts and spirits as part of a wider circle of belonging.

Through voice, silence, songs, spells, and ritual we will invite into a space of deep listening. A space where we can practice gentler ways of being together in an unsettled world.”

The realization of the project is supported by Culture Moves Europe, Státni fond kultury, Královéhradecký kraj and Klášter Broumov - Vzdělávací a kulturní centrum.

18/02/2026

Borderland Forest Spells residency at Broumov Monastery.

February residents Liene Jurgelāne, Agnieszka Bułacik, and Hanna Grześkiewicz in front of their temporary home in Broumov – spending this month listening with the forests, mountains, trees, rivers, and humans of the Czech-Polish borderlands.

Photo: Anna Iljašenko

31/01/2026

Borderland Forest Spells residency at Broumov Monastery.
Meet our resident Liene Jurgelāne.

Liene is an artist, facilitator, curator, and anthropologist. Originally from Latvia, now living in Denmark. Her practice weaves together performance art, artistic research, and multispecies collaborations, rooted in earth-based wisdom traditions, especially those from the Baltic region. She creates spaces for deep connections - through sensory walks, participatory performances, workshops, DJ sets, festival programs, or medicinal gardens - spaces where humans and more-than-humans can meet in a reciprocal exchange.

Her work invites to move beyond extractive ways of relating with plants and trees, instead entering into dialogue with plant beings as collaborators and teachers. Through this embodied listening, she explores themes of community, ecological belonging, response-ability and agency in times of intersecting socioecological crises.

Photo: Mads Peter Laursen

30/01/2026

Borderland Forest Spells residency at Broumov Monastery.
Meet our resident Hanna Grześkiewicz.

Hanna Grześkiewicz is an artist, curator and researcher. Her work explores the relationship of art with social movements, feminist thought, border politics, and sound ecology. She works in collective, participatory, and public settings, which comes out of her engagement with q***r-feminist, migrant, and anti-imperialist social movements.

Hanna was the discourse curator for the IMPULS Festival in East Germany (2022-2023) and regularly produces work for radio. She was part of transmediale festival’s 2022 research group, and has presented her work – amongst others – at the Akademie der Künste (Berlin), CTM Festival (Berlin), Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London), Barbican Centre (London), Struer Tracks Biennial (Denmark), Gaudeamus Festival (Netherlands), and Sanatorium of Sound Festival (Poland), as well as numerous academic conferences. She has written for a wide range of publications, including from peer-reviewed academic journals, specialist art and music magazines, as well as daily newspapers.

Photo: Dimitri Djuric