Live Art Writers Network x Citemor 2025

performingborders has been accompanying Citemor festival (Montemor, Portugal) since 2022, and it was through a residency there that the initial idea of a  Live Art Writers Network was born. You can find more information on the project here and read a text by the previous Citemor residents Dori Nigo and Paulo Pinto here.

This summer, we are returning with a new collaborative approach working with artist, writer and academic Diana Damian Martin and invited artists Letícia Maia and Ed Freitas, to engage in critical writing and on-going responses to performance, production and life at the festival. In response to Diana’s research into non-conforming criticisms, this iteration of LAWN reflects on queer temporalities and what emerges from them, while being in relation with a live body of work.

CITEMOR RESIDENCY 2025

The writers accompanying Citemor 2025 will be in residency for the duration of the festival, engaging with multiple artistic languages, artists and spaces. Throughout the festival, they will publish responses on the Citemor’s website dedicated LAWN page, and at the end will work on a post-festival critical reflection, published on the  performingborders platform. 

Follow their on-going publications here: https://www.citemor.com/performingborders

This work will be in dialogue with research on unruly and queer temporalities for critical writing, led by Diana Damian Martin. How can we be present with performance in multiple temporalities? What does it mean to be in a particular place responding directly to performance, and also allow space and time for a post-festival reflection? What does duration offer in performance, and in critical relations to it? What queer temporalities emerge in being in residence with a live body of work?

This year’s Live Art Writers Network residency with Citemor is also driven from within the on-going discussions and work with our Portugal-based community. This year’s invited writers were selected in collaboration with LAWN contributors Dori Nigro and Paulo Pinto.

LAWN x Citemor 2025 is conceived by performingborders and Diana Damian Martin, in collaboration with Citemor Festival. Funded by Necessity Fund and Royal Central School of Speech & Drama.

ABOUT LAWN

Live Art Writers Network (LAWN), is a network aimed at cultivating experimental writing practices happening in dialogue with performance and live art. This project aspires to create a nurturing environment for writers to meet and engage with performance contexts, providing connection, mentorship, and a publishing platform for developing practices. Our mission is to foster creative and critical responses to performance that resonate and respond to conversations happening on a local level whilst linking to transnational critical dialogue on performance, publishing, artwork, labour, and political action. 

ABOUT THE WRITERS

Ed Freitas is a visual and transdisciplinary artist born in Northeast Brazil and based in Coimbra, Portugal. His work interweaves performance, installation, sculpture, and textile art, investigating the Installative Presence — a concept he explores through his PhD in Contemporary Art at the University of Coimbra. Through fabrics, mantles, and sensory objects, he builds poetic devices where the body becomes a living archive of ancestry. Recipient of the World Cultural Council Award (2022), Freitas’ work operates between political tension and embodied sensitivity. His international presence spans festivals, exhibitions, and residencies across Brazil, Portugal, France, Romania, Germany, and the US. He also works as a curator, educator, and critical thinker at Ateliar Nuno Fonseca in Coimbra. Instagram: @ed_freitas 

Letícia Maia (1988, Mairiporã – SP, Brazil) is an artist who lives and works in Portugal. She holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Faculdade de Belas Artes do Porto – FBAUP (2023, Portugal) and a Bachelor’s degree in Communication of the Body Arts from the Pontificia Universidade Católica de São Paulo – PUC-SP (2014, Brazil). Her artistic practice unfolds in a transdisciplinary field between performance, drawing and sculpture, with a strong interest in exploring the political dimension of the body — particularly issues related to gender, identity, sexuality, and normativity — challenging the ways the body has been represented throughout art history. In recent years, she has presented her work in a variety of contexts, participating in festivals, exhibitions, showcases and artist residencies in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Austria and Portugal. She is currently developing the project “montar corpo”, supported by a creation grant from the Artistas Douro / Porto City Council program, in residence at Mala Voadora (Porto, Portugal). Her recent solo exhibitions include: “Decomposição Tropical” (Júlio Resende Foundation, Gondomar, Portugal, 2025); “MAKE FEMININE” (a project supported by a DGArtes 2023 artistic creation grant, presented at Maus Hábitos – Cultural Intervention Space, Porto, Portugal, 2024); and “D Ó C I L_corpo, genero, poder, e performance” (AL859 Space, Porto, Portugal, 2023). She is also active in the organization and curatorship of performance art events, like Performance Art Shows Movediça_ Mostra de Performance Arte, since 2017 in São Paulo, and trëma(¨), which premiered in 2023 in the city of Porto.

Diana Damian Martin is a writer, artist and researcher working on questions of borders, performance, experimental practices as well as alternative critical cultures and collaborative work. She co-hosts collectives Something Other, Department of Feminist Conversations, Critical Interruptions, Generative Constraints and is a programme leader for the BA (Hons) Performance and Contemporary Arts at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Picture credits

1. ‘A Múmia’, photo by Cristiana Nogueira
2. Ed Freitas, photo by Paulo Andias
3. Letícia Maia, photo shared by Letícia Maia