[artinfo] Open call for UNIDEE 2020

[Art & Education]

Open call for UNIDEE 2020: Embedded Arts Practice in a Post-pandemic Future

Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto

Application deadline: August 24, 2020, 5pm

<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/xq024p8a63d8f/track-url/rj476aj0679d5/0b2f673a2efb85422617fa638f40eff2a6911f33>www.cittadellarte.it

What can we do from this place? What future can we build together?

<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/xq024p8a63d8f/track-url/rj476aj0679d5/0b2f673a2efb85422617fa638f40eff2a6911f33>UNIDEE 
and Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto are 
pleased to invite applications for participation 
in this year's Unidee Residency. Curated by Andy 
Abbott the theme is "Embedded Arts Practice in a 
Post-pandemic Future".

The global Coronavirus pandemic is an event that 
had created new conditions for arts and culture. 
Those who wish to effect social change through 
their practice are left with questions: "What can 
we do from here?" and "What future can we help to 
build?". The residency aims to collectively and 
collaboratively address key questions, challenges 
and themes in the area of embedded and socially 
engaged art practice. Through the lens of a "post 
pandemic" future, participants will gain 
practical and theoretical knowledge that they can 
then apply in both the postindustrial context of 
Biella and their own locale.

Over ten weeks from September to November 2020, 
the residency will provide time and space for 
practitioners and thinkers from a range of 
backgrounds to collectively and collaboratively 
address key questions and challenges for embedded 
and socially engaged art practice in the 
unfolding context of a post-virus world. Read the 
UNIDEE 2020 program Curatorial Statement 
<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/xq024p8a63d8f/track-url/rj476aj0679d5/56faf66b4216738a00155d4f67ab0205cfb79f52>here.

How will it work?
In order to accommodate global social distancing 
measures and travel restrictions the bulk of the 
residency will be accessed remotely, with a 
one-week intensive project in 
Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella 
(Northern Italy).

Participants will be invited to undertake an 
action research project in their locale-initiated 
in response to simple brief-to develop and share 
with the rest of the cohort. The one-week 
intensive in Biella will provide an opportunity 
for three participants at a time to test and 
apply their project in the context of Biella, a 
postindustrial town with a history of adapting to 
transformations in the way we work, live, create 
and be with one another.

Participants will benefit from perspectives, 
workshops, and mentoring opportunities from guest 
practitioners, curators, arts organisers and 
academics that will enrich and help frame their 
own practice and projects. Invited guests include 
architect and researcher Sandi Hilal, 
(Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency, 
Stockholm, Sweden), Arte Útil curators and 
researchers Gemma Medina Estupiñán and Alessandra 
Saviotti (Spain/Italy), curator and 
organizer-as-artist Eva Rowson (Bergen Kjøtt, 
University of Bergen, Norway), professor of art 
Mick Wilson (Hdk-Valand Academy/University of 
Gothenburg, Sweden), Nadia Moreno Moya and 
Fernando Escobar Neira (School of Arts, National 
University of Colombia) researchers working on 
the interstices between the art and politics in 
Latin America, independent research and curator 
Aria Spinelli (Rome, Italy) as well as embedded 
arts organisations In-Situ (East Lancashire, UK) 
and South Square Centre (West Yorkshire, UK).

Participants will also access an online symposium 
and weekly webinar series themed on the past, 
present and future of embedded and socially 
engaged practice, and take part in virtual 
seminars to discuss and share their work.

The residency will be documented and disseminated 
through a collective installation/exhibition at 
Cittadellarte, and a publication.

Who is it for?
We envisage a cohort of up to thirty participants 
from a range of backgrounds and with diverse 
practices in the area of socially engaged art and 
social practice, curatorial practice, and 
community-organization. Participants will have an 
emerging or developing practice-either as an 
individual or as representative of an 
organisation or institution-that they are ready 
to share, interrogate and test in new contexts. 
Experience need not necessarily relate to an 
institution or formal education. We particularly 
welcome applications from those who will bring 
under-represented voices and perspectives to the 
cohort.

Participants will need to be able to engage with 
the full ten weeks of the program that will take 
place between September 21 and November 29, 2020, 
and commit to a one-week intensive project in 
Biella at some point in this period. The week in 
Biella is from Monday to Monday and the 
participants must arrive in Biella the Sunday and 
leave on Tuesday. This because Monday is one of 
the most important days for the program as it is 
the time for two groups of participants to 
overlap and interesting conversations and 
exchanges will arise.

The ten slots for the one-week intensive in 
Biella are: September 21- 28 / September 
28-October 5 / October 5-12 / October 12-19 / 
October 19- 26 / October 26- November 2 / 
November 2- 9 / November 9-16 / November 16-23 / 
November 23-30

In your application you will be asked to let us 
know if there are any weeks you can definitely 
not be present in Biella, as well as any week for 
which you have a preference.

The program will be delivered in English and 
participants should be fluent speakers.

Bursaries and scholarships are available to cover 
the full EUR 1500 fee for the program and 
accommodation whilst in Biella. Participants will 
be required to cover their own travel to/from 
Biella and food/living costs whilst in 
Cittadellarte.

Application
Application is by Expression of Interest by 
filling out the application form with the 
following requirement:
-Indicate the weeks of preference of the one-week 
intensive project in Cittadellarte (from Monday 
to Monday);
-Up to 150 words about yourself and your practice 
and/or experience, and your suitability for the 
residency*;
-Up to 200 words about the local context (place, 
communities, audiences) in which you would 
undertake your action research project and what 
long-term change you could hope to facilitate;
-Up to 150 words about the challenges, concerns 
or worries you have for your practice in a 
post-pandemic future;
-and a CV / Portfolio in PDF format (max 6mb).

*Please state if you would like to be considered 
for a bursary to subsidise the residency fee.

Download the application form 
<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/xq024p8a63d8f/track-url/rj476aj0679d5/78a393e66f96978742e9b8e95ba3581130de0405>here.

Applicants must submit their application by email 
to: unidee at cittadellarte.it stating: "UNIDEE 2020 
residency application (your name)" as a subject 
line.

Deadline for submission is 5pm August 24 and we 
will let successful applicants know a decision by 
August 31.

About Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto
In 1999 Michelangelo Pistoletto founded 
<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/xq024p8a63d8f/track-url/rj476aj0679d5/8d573f5994068e40897074fcdd67a7abee7a970a>Cittadellarte 
- Fondazione Pistoletto's program of artists' 
residencies for art and social transformation: 
UNIDEE residency programs. A program open to 
artists and professionals from all over the world 
who reside at Cittadellarte for a certain period 
of time; the program aims at providing 
instruments for "artivators", i.e. subjects 
working at the boundaries between artistic 
practices, processes of social change and 
collaborations with communities external to the 
art world, weaving together moments of 
interdisciplinary research, exchange of knowledge 
and practical activities; the objective of the 
program is to provide the participants with the 
inspiration, motivation and instruments to 
activate, develop or strengthen artistic 
initiatives based on the involvement of local 
ecologies.


Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto
Via G. B. Serralunga 27
13900 Biella
Italy

For further informations please visit 
<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/xq024p8a63d8f/track-url/rj476aj0679d5/0b2f673a2efb85422617fa638f40eff2a6911f33>UNIDEE 
website or contact us via email: 
<https://email.e-flux-systems.com/campaigns/xq024p8a63d8f/track-url/rj476aj0679d5/6e39e615fc9023ee13593c58fe8391c065ded212>unidee at cittadellarte.it