Provincija is an arts organization founded in
2020 by visual artist Mauricio Ferlin and performing artist Matija
Ferlin as a production and research platform centered on artistic work
developed at the intersection of performance, visual arts, and long-term
collaboration. Conceived as a focused and closely connected circle of
artists, Provincija provides a structural,
conceptual, and production framework that supports both the artistic
practice of Matija Ferlin and the individual practices of its members.
The core memebers of Provincija includes
actress Jadranka Đokić, writer and dramaturg Goran Ferčec, costume
designer Desanka Janković, lighting designer Saša Fistrić, and musician
Melita Lovričević. Each of these artists maintains an autonomous
professional practice, while Provincija supports and produces work within a shared organizational and artistic framework.
Provincija’s activities encompass the
production and presentation of theatre, dance, performance, and
exhibition-based works, as well as the development of interdisciplinary
artistic projects. The organization also collaborates with a wider
circle of artists and thinkers; among its associated collaborators is
Leo Rafolt, whose theoretical and critical work contributes to the
discursive and reflective dimensions of the organization’s artistic
practice.
As an arts organization, Provincija operates
not merely as a production entity, but as a sustained artistic
constellation grounded in shared values, trust, and long-term
collaboration. Provincija is based in
Svetvinčenat, Croatia. A small town whose peripheral position is central
to the organization’s identity. By working from the so-called
periphery, Provincija asserts that artistic
production developed outside institutional and urban centers can operate
with equal intensity, relevance, and complexity, proposing an
alternative understanding of what “province” can signify in a
contemporary artistic context.
September 2026
Jon Fosse’s play Sleep, My Baby, Sleep, directed and choreographed by Matija Ferlin, has been nominated for Best Performance Overall at the 2026 Annual Professional Awards for Contemporary Dance in Croatia. Created by Ferlin in collaboration with performers Petra Chelfi, Martina Tomić, Ivana Pavlović and Petra Valentić, the performance is produced by Katana and TRAS Studio.
The annual professional awards recognize outstanding achievements in contemporary dance in Croatia. This year’s nominees were selected by a professional jury, with the winners to be announced on 3 October 2026 at the Gorgona Hall of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, as part of the pilot edition of FUTUR III – Festival of the Croatian Choreographic Scene.
The full list of nominees is available on the UPUH website.
SAD SAM ROSE — Project in development / Call for partners
September 2026
Sad Sam Rose is a new performance project by Matija Ferlin, developed in collaboration with writer Goran Ferčec, produced by Provincija, and the latest chapter in Ferlin’s long-term Sad Sam series. The project is currently in its research and development phase, with the premiere planned for spring 2027.
Sad Sam Rose is a performance project that emerges at the intersection of personal genealogy, physical incapacity, and the passive performing body as an object of transmission and inheritance. Drawing on the experience of the artist’s grandmother, who spent ten years lying immobile with Alzheimer’s disease, and her son (the artist’s father), who today, immobilised in the same bed, lives with Parkinson’s disease, the performance establishes the performer’s body as a physical medium between generations — as a living archive through which the corporeality of illness, memories, gestures, and voice is transmitted into performative and choreographic material.
Starting from the idea of the passive body, that is, the body in a state of incapacity, the performance conceptually reduces and calls into question its own choreographic apparatus: the performance is established from a lying position, through the horizontality of a body that no longer possesses the fundamental performative privilege — the possibility of moving through space. The bed thus becomes simultaneously a stage, a landscape, a choreographic field, and a place of care, a point of performative stasis in which activity is generated outside the body as object, outside movement, outside the possibility of locomotion.
The choreographic and dramaturgical research focuses on incapacity as its initial dramaturgical problem: how, and through which elements, can performativity be established as a task within a body that cannot move, speak, or recognise, and which precisely through its (im)possibilities carries a layered performative imaginary? What form of performative dialogue is established between the physical incapacity of the ill body and the choreographic appropriation of these conditio humana? What does the choreographic body take upon itself beyond stasis?
The audience gathers around the immobile body, almost in an iconographic disposition of mourning, shifting the spectator’s gaze between observation, witnessing, and a collective vigil.
Sad Sam Rose does not treat incapacity as the absence of action, but as a different regime of performance. Within a body that cannot stand, a space opens for questions of interdependence: who moves the body that can no longer move by itself, who speaks when it can no longer speak, and where does one body end and another begin? Illness, the genome, caregiving, and care for the body thus become part of the same choreography of transmission — an intimate and transgenerational anatomy of togetherness.
Sad Sam Rose is currently in development and open to conversations with institutions, festivals, and organisations interested in joining the project through co-production or other forms of partnership. If you are interested in the project or would like to explore a possible collaboration, feel free to get in touch with us at info@matijaferlin.com
A New Project in Development: Životni amater
August 2026
Provincija member, musician and author Melita Lovričević has initiated the development of Životni amater (Amateur at Life), a new interdisciplinary performance project created in collaboration with choreographer and dancer Roberta Milevoj.
The project reverses the conventional relationship between choreography and music: rather than inviting a musician to respond to an existing choreographic concept, Lovričević has invited Milevoj to create an autonomous choreographic response to her original music. Taking seven songs from Lovričević’s album Životni amater as its dramaturgical point of departure, the project investigates how music, text and movement can operate as distinct yet interdependent modes of performance. Rather than illustrating the musical material, the choreography will enter into a critical and embodied dialogue with its rhythms, affects, narratives and internal tensions.
Provincija’s co-founders Matija Ferlin and Mauricio Ferlin will contribute to the project as artistic advisors. The performance will be produced by the artistic organization Provincija and is expected to premiere in May 2027 as part of the Premieres in Residence programme at the Zagreb Dance Centre. Further information about the creative process and collaborating artists will be announced as the project develops.
Matija Ferlin Featured on RTV Slovenija’s Profil
August 2026
Choreographer, dancer, and director Matija Ferlin was a guest on Profil, a programme produced by RTV Slovenija, where he spoke with journalist and host Tina Šrot about his artistic practice, creative journey, and work in contemporary dance and theatre.
The programme looks back at Ferlin’s international career, from his studies at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) in Amsterdam and his time living and working in Berlin and Toronto, to his return to his hometown of Pula, where he has continued to develop and explore his distinctive approach to performance and stage creation.
Ferlin’s work is well known to Slovenian audiences through his numerous performances and regular appearances on the Slovenian dance and theatre scene.
Watch the full episode of Profil here.
Matija Ferlin Appointed Jury Member at the 61st Borštnik Theatre Festival
May 2026
Choreographer, director, and performer Matija Ferlin will serve as a member of the professional jury of the Competition Programme at the 61st Borštnikovo srečanje, one of the most important theatre festivals in Slovenia and the wider region.
The festival will take place in
Maribor from 8 to 21 June 2026 and will present a selection of the most
outstanding theatre productions from the past Slovenian theatre season.
The
professional jury of the competition programme consists of Petra
Vidali, Karolina Sadlauskaitė, Benjamin Zajc, Matija Ferlin, and
Snježana Abramović Milković.
Founded in 1966, the Borštnikovo
srečanje is considered the central Slovenian theatre festival, bringing
together leading theatre artists, performances, and international guests
each year. The festival awards the prestigious Borštnik Awards,
including the renowned Borštnik Ring for lifetime achievement in acting.
Being
invited to join the jury represents an important recognition of Matija
Ferlin’s long-standing contribution to contemporary performing arts and
his international artistic presence.