MEN4DEM
Artistic Interventions
TOOLKIT
Intro | Artistic Interventions | Toolkit & Downloads | Publications & Research | Bookings & Collaboration
Explore, Experience, Reflect, Create change.
How can artistic experiences help us challenge assumptions,
explore different perspectives
and imagine more inclusive futures?
As part of the European Horizon project MEN4DEM, Via Berlin has developed a series of artistic interventions that bring together art, science and society to explore masculinities, polarisation, radicalisation and democracy.
Through immersive theatre, scripted Live Action Role Play (LARP), interactive videos and games, these interventions invite people to engage with complex social questions in ways that go beyond discussion alone. By stepping into different perspectives, making choices and experiencing situations from within, participants are encouraged to reflect on their own beliefs, assumptions and responses to others.
This toolkit is designed to make these artistic interventions accessible and usable beyond the MEN4DEM project.
Here you can explore the different interventions, discover how they work and access scripts, practical guidelines and downloadable materials to bring them into your own educational, cultural, research or community setting.
Whether you are an educator, researcher, theatre maker or organisation looking for new ways to engage people in meaningful dialogue, we invite you to explore the possibilities.
Want to take it further?
Via Berlin can help you adapt or facilitate an intervention, organise a workshop or bring our scripted Nordic LARP, What Happens When We Meet?, to your organisation or event.
Explore the toolkit, download the materials or get in touch to collaborate.
Artistic Interventions
What happens when we don't just talk about different perspectives, but actually experience them?
Within MEN4DEM, Via Berlin has developed a series of artistic interventions that invite participants to explore the social expectations, beliefs and narratives that shape how we see ourselves and others.
Each intervention offers a different way of engaging with complex societal questions. Some invite participants to step into someone else's life, others challenge them to recognise manipulation, question familiar narratives or reflect on their own assumptions.
Rather than telling people what to think, these interventions create space for curiosity, emotional engagement, dialogue and reflection.
The interventions range from immersive live experiences to interactive digital formats. They can be used in educational, cultural, research and community settings, reaching different audiences in different ways.
Explore the interventions below to discover how they work, what participants experience and how you can use or organise them yourself.
Scripted Nordic LARP
What happens when we meet?
What if you became part of the story? What Happens When We Meet? is not simply a performance, but a world in which you play and make the decisions yourself.IMAGINE that for one day, you could be someone else.
Not on a screen, not in a story you watch, but in a world you actually experience.
This is LARP: Live Action Role Play.
LARP is not theatre, not a game, not improvisation; it is a unique combination of all three. You literally step into a story, take on a role, and together with others determine how it unfolds.
There is no audience. You are the story.
Whether you are an idealist who wants to test your beliefs, a curious mind eager to see the world through someone else’s eyes, or simply looking to break free from everyday reality, this scripted Nordic LARP gives you the opportunity to experience, feel and act as someone else.
What all LARPs have in common: You meet people in a different, deeper way.
You do not play to win, but to experience.
You discover something about the world and perhaps about yourself as well.
So put on your everyday clothes, let go of your expectations, and step into a world in which you are the protagonist.
LARP is not an escape. It is an invitation.
An invitation to feel, explore and reinvent yourself.
Synopsis
Eight cousins come together for a family reunion.
What begins as a familiar gathering, with old patterns immediately resurfacing,
develops into an increasingly tense confrontation:
how different can you become, even when you come from the same family?
Over the course of three reunions, taking place at different moments in their lives,
you experience how each family member changes, clashes, hardens or begins to open up.
Their choices, conflicts and desires put their relationships under increasing pressure.
And here is what makes it different:
you help determine how the story unfolds.
What Happens When We Meet? is not a performance you simply watch,
but an experience you step into.
Instead of sitting in the audience, you take on the role of one of the characters.
You experience their memories, embody their emotions, and receive live coaching from
actress, director and Via Berlin artistic director Dagmar Slagmolen,
and game and LARP designer Bruno Setola.
It is a unique opportunity for anyone who loves theatre, has always wanted the chance to perform with Via Berlin, or is curious about the world of LARP (Live Action Role Play), where theatre and play merge into an immersive, lifelike experience.
Step into What Happens When We Meet? Eight lives. Three encounters.
One family. And an ending that only you can shape.
Experience the LARP or learn to bring it to others.
Developed by Via Berlin as part of the European Horizon project MEN4DEM, What Happens When We Meet? is a unique form of scripted Nordic LARP that brings together immersive theatre, personal experience and powerful encounters with different perspectives.
Following its international premiere in Kraków and its Dutch premiere at the Oerol Festival in June 2026, the LARP is travelling across Europe, with sessions in Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Greece, Germany and Sweden.
And now, you can bring this experience to your own organisation, community or audience.
Whether you want to experience the LARP with your own group or learn how to facilitate it yourself, there are two ways to get involved.
1. Bring the LARP to your organisation or event
Let your participants step into someone else's shoes.
Via Berlin can bring What Happens When We Meet? to your organisation, theatre, festival or event, creating an immersive experience that invites participants to explore different perspectives, challenge assumptions and encounter one another in unexpected ways.
The LARP is particularly suitable for healthcare professionals, policymakers, youth workers, community groups, bystanders and theatre or LARP enthusiasts.
Each session lasts approximately 4–5 hours, including a shared lunch or dinner as an integral part of the experience.
Via Berlin provides professional facilitation, all necessary materials and guided reflection. The LARP can be organised in a variety of locations and settings.
Interested in bringing the LARP to your audience? Get in touch with Via Berlin to explore the possibilities.
To book a LARP workshop,
please contact dagmar@viaberlin.nl
2. Train the Trainer – Learn to facilitate the LARP yourself
Experience it. Learn the method. Bring it to others.
Would you like to use What Happens When We Meet? within your own organisation, educational programme or community?
Via Berlin offers Train the Trainer sessions for professionals and organisations who want to facilitate the LARP independently.
During the training, you will experience the full LARP as a participant before discovering how to guide others through the process. You will learn about the scripts, character development, group dynamics, facilitation, emotional safety and reflection.
After completing the training, you will receive the materials and practical guidance needed to organise and facilitate the LARP with your own groups.
All materials are available in seven languages: Dutch, English, German, Swedish, Polish, Italian and Greek.
This makes it possible to bring the experience to new audiences, communities and countries.
Want to become a facilitator? Contact Via Berlin to learn more about our Train the Trainer programme.
One LARP. Many perspectives. Countless possibilities to connect.
Whether you join as a participant or bring the experience to others, What Happens When We Meet? offers a different way to encounter the world and the people around you.
Participant in Athens, Greece:
"Playing this LARP and becoming another kind of man - another kind of person -
is an ongoing process. Infinite, actually. You have to stay aware all the time.
What this LARP made painfully clear is that the old version of me didn't disappear. It's still there. Very close ... Right under the surface ... This character wasn't foreign to me at all. It was familiar. Uncomfortably familiar."
Participants reactions at the Oerol festival in The Netherlands
“What an incredibly well-crafted experience! So thoughtfully and authentically developed.”“Such an incredibly enjoyable experience!”
“It was so special to experience the world from the inside through the eyes of someone who seems so different from me. I learned so much!”
"The character became much closer to me than I expected."
"I began by judging. I ended by understanding."
"For the first time, I truly felt seen."
"People are much more complicated than they first appear."
"We started as strangers. Two hours later, we felt like family."
Performance Scripts
Two artistic scripts. Two different ways to create space for reflection, connection and change.
As part of MEN4DEM, Via Berlin shares two performance scripts that can be used and adapted by artists, organisations and event organisers to bring new perspectives into public gatherings and shared experiences.
Echoes of Masculinity
Opening and closing conferences through performance
Echoes of Masculinity is a performative intervention designed to open or close conferences, forums and public events.
Through spoken word and theatrical storytelling, it invites audiences to reflect on the expectations, pressures and assumptions surrounding masculinity and gender.
Rather than simply introducing or summarising a topic, the performance creates an emotional starting point for dialogue or offers a moment of collective reflection at the end of an event.
Download the Scripts
Both scripts are available to inspire artists, facilitators and organisations to explore how performance can open conversations, encourage reflection and create meaningful collective experiences.
Attribution is mandatory. Whenever these scripts are used, performed or adapted, Via Berlin must be clearly credited as the original creator.
Looking for a Tailor-Made Performance?
Every gathering has its own questions, challenges and stories.
Via Berlin also creates original, tailor-made theatrical performances and artistic interventions for conferences, organisations, festivals and public events.
Whether you are looking for a powerful opening, a thought-provoking closing or an unexpected artistic experience woven into your programme, we can develop a performance that connects with your audience and the themes that matter to you.
Get in touch with Via Berlin to explore what we can create together
via dagmar@viaberlin.nl
Rouw | Rauw
A musical rite of passage
Rouw | Rauw is a musical ritual that invites participants to reflect on what we carry with us, what we may need to leave behind and what it means to embrace change.
Combining music, performance and ritual, it creates a shared space for acknowledging familiar patterns, letting go of limiting expectations and making room for new possibilities.
Rather than offering answers, the ritual invites participants to experience transition together.
Research
What happens when we meet? is one of the artistic interventions created within the European Horizon project Masculinities for the Future of European Democracy (MEN4DEM), of which Via Berlin is a partner.MEN4DEM is a Horizon Europe-funded research project that builds bridges between society, art and science in order to explore new ways of making masculinities more inclusive and, in doing so, strengthening the future of European democracy. Through the international MEN4DEM project, we bring together gender-equality organisations, performance artists and a consortium of academic partners from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Greece and Italy. Through intensive collaboration, we create and exchange different forms of knowledge. Together, we develop and test approaches to transforming anti-democratic forms of masculinity into more inclusive ones.
Highlighted Publications
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Policy Brief
DEMOCRACY UNDER PRESSURE: NEW TOOLS TO COUNTER GENDERED RADICALISATION
We conducted a systematic, evidence-based review of intervention effectiveness and synthesized these scientific findings with best practices from MenEngage Europe.
MEN4DEM brings together the knowledge of academics, artists, and activists to co-create and test interventions that engage men in strengthening democratic resilience.
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What happens when we meet?
MEN4DEMs new report on Interventions to Shape More Democratic Masculinities; presenting two complementary interventions designed to prevent radicalisation and strengthen democratic, egalitarian masculinities by helping participants recognise and resist the social and rhetorical processes through which anti-democratic narratives take hold.
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Can Stories shift political view?
Pilot Study for the LARP:
When Did You Leave? is an immersive theatre experiment on populist radical-right narratives.
In a time of growing political polarization, these findings matter far beyond Terschelling. PRR politicians and influencers are skilled storytellers. They know very well how to effectively convey their nativist, populist and sexist messages. Our study helps illuminate through which such persuasion works.
Contact & Bookings
This toolkit is created by Via Berlin within the Europe Horizon project MEN4DEM
in co-creation with
Emancipator (Netherlands) and expert organizations from Sweden, Germany, Italy, Poland and Greece affiliated with MenEngage
and researchers from the Netherlands (University of Amsterdam), Germany, Italy, Sweden, Greece and Poland.
For more information
about the different interventions and scripts and or
to BOOK a LARP workshop,
please contact dagmar@viaberlin.nl