Participatory Conversation Event “Feast of Strangers” by Theodore Zeldin

About the event
“Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts; they transform them. Conversation doesn’t just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards, and it involves being willing to emerge a slightlydifferent person,” Theodore Zeldin

Feast of Strangers is a unique initiative by The Oxford Muse Foundation, founded by Theodore Zeldin in 2001, offering an education in meaningful conversation. Rather than lectures, participants engage in guided dialogue that explores differing perspectives and mutual understanding.

Guests are paired with a ‘stranger’ and given a Menu of Conversation—a selection of thought-provoking topics instead of dishes. Through this structured exchange, participants reflect on their own lives while gaining insight into others. Their encounter will be both absorbing and permanently memorable; it will change their world, even if just for a short time.

Held in over 20 countries with more than 12,000 participants, the event now comes to Valmiera as part of the Art Week of the Annual Art Award of Latvia.

Join the first edition, opened by Theodore Zeldin.

About Theodore Zeldin
Theodore Zeldin CBE is an Oxford University historian and philosopher. He has been a pioneer in revealing how relationships and emotions such as love, fear, loneliness, friendship and ambition have evolved in different civilisations over the centuries, and most importantly, how they can be changed again today through a new kind of conversation that creates trust between strangers, new ways of working that avoid boredom, and new attitudes to rebellious youth and forsaken old age.

He has been an adviser to the President of France, made a Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur and awarded The Wolfson Prize.

Language: The event will take place in Latvian and English. Participants will be paired according to their preferred language.

Additional information: Please bring indoor shoes or socks

Surveillance and/or video cameras may be present in the event area. By attending the event, the visitor agrees that photos, videos, and/or audio recordings may be made during the event, in which they may be filmed or photographed as an attendee. Such material may later be used for any purpose, including commercial use, without the visitor’s permission.