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During the meeting in Edinburgh. Photo by project participants

The project "EU Contemporary Puppetry Critical Platform", funded by the "Creative Europe" Programme of the European Commission, has been successfully completed. We would like to thank all those who contributed to the project: Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, which initiated the project, the Academy of Arts and Culture of Osijek in Croatia, the Puppet Animation Scotland, Vilnius Theatre "Lėlė" and Estonian Theatre for Young Audiences, which voluntarily joined the project.

When the project started at the end of 2020, under the coordination of Vilnius Theatre "Lėlė", the project website contemppuppetry.eu was created, where critics' texts and news related to contemporary puppet theatre started to be published on the International, Slovenian, Croatian, Scottish and Lithuanian platforms in the national languages. The development and coordination of these platforms was contributed by editors Tjaša Bertoncelj (Slovenia), Igor Tretinjak (Croatia), Ieva Raudeliūnaitė (Lithuania) and Gareth Vile (Scotland). The participating critics were mentored, shared their experience and edited by Rok Bozovičar (Slovenia), Andrius Jevsejevas (Lithuania), Kristina Steiblytė (Lithuania), and the previously-mentioned editors Igor Tretinjak (Croatia) and Gareth Vile (Scotland).

During the almost three years of the project, a large number of theatre critics have joined the project. The organisers would like to thank the creators of the Lithuanian platform for their participation in the project: Dovilė Jadzevičiūtė, Gabrielė Pelakauskaitė, Aiste Šivytė, Greta Vilnelė, Miglė Munderzbakaitė, Urtė Grigaliūnaitė, Kristina Karvelytė, Ingrida Ragelskienė, Vesta Bartašiūte, Urte Rimkevičiūtė, Andrėja Gričiutė, co-author of the publication in the LUTKA magazine, contributor Ramunė Balevičiūtė, and the video content coordinator Žilvinas Vingelis. We would also like to thank the translators Laima Bezginaitė, Tomas Einoris, Agnė Šorienė, Judita Gliauberzonaitė, the language editor Marius Boreišis and others. We would like to thank the project partners Tjaša Pirnar, Tajda Lipicer, Tjaša Breznik, Maša Radi Buh, Maša Jazbec and others (Slovenia), Ida Klarić, Anđela Vidović, Maja Dobrojević, Doria Lilion and others (Croatia), Inesa Vėlavičiūtė, Louisa Hahn, Alistair Maxwell, Natalia Giorga and others (Scotland), Leino Rei (Estonia).

The objectives of the project have been met. The magazine LUTKA was published and presented (in English, Slovenian, Croatian, Lithuanian, print and digital versions), three video lectures were filmed in Slovenia, Lithuania and Croatia, the handbook "Contemporary Puppetry and Criticism" was prepared, published and presented (print and digital versions), and the project held four meetings in Ljubljana, Vilnius, Edinburgh and Osijek. Over the period of almost three years, dozens of reviews were written, interviews and several academic articles were published, and texts on contemporary puppetry by other authors were republished. The project has been successfully extended for six months until 30 April 2023.

We would like to thank Uroš Korenčan, Ajda Rooss, Benjamin Zajc, Pija Bodlaj, designer Ajda Schmidt, Igor Tretinjak, Antonija Matić, Vilmantas Juškėnas, Ieva Likauskaitė, Dawn Taylor, Aidan Nicol and others for their work in coordinating the project and the residencies.