Ar livre

AR LIVRE (Open air) was a project of co-creation, training and socially engaged art with women and men in Guarda Prison. Over a year of regular work, and drawing on Michel Foucault’s idea of heterotopia, the theatre space became a place where the daily life of the prison was held in suspension.

The dramaturgy started from ‘breathing as a political act’: breathing as a physiological and emotional gesture, and as a gesture of resistance. Through creative writing, improvisation and stage composition, and with a number of guest artists, the participants turned memories and lived experience into artistic material.

Out of this came SUSTER (Sustain), performed by the participants themselves. It premiered on 29 May 2026 at the Teatro Municipal da Guarda and was then performed for the prison community, inside the prison itself, on 25 June.