Artist-Community Synergies

For communities & artists

Deadline:  Sunday, November 1st 2020, 24h00 (UTC)

In December 2020, the Biennale of Western Balkans will hold a digital event as part of the organisation’s year-round programme, where local, artistic and research communities will have the opportunity to collaborate online. BoWB will be launching Textile Month as the first edition of a community science series on intangible culture, aspiring to empower living or documented textile communities and their artistic heritage, through research-based art creation.

We invite communities of practice, regionally active groups and underrepresented collectives, with a focus on the Balkan region, who deal with any technique around textiles, including people from different regions, social backgrounds and age groups, LGBTQ, BIPOC and other ethnic communities as well as diasporic, cross-border and common interest or common needs communities. 

We also invite artists from the local and international scene working with textiles in any form, including e-textiles, digital art or cultural data visualisations, who are interested in approaching the field from diverse perspectives, bringing forth gender, ecological, intercultural and other critical issues.

Artists and communities will have the opportunity to cooperate together online, in order to co-create research-based artworks that explore community cultural knowledge and their textile artistic heritage through contemporary art practices. Up to 5 communities and an equal number of artists will be selected by a committee, forming artists-communities synergies. Pairs will be able to meet by mid-November online, set their course of action and work together within December. Artists will be able to create artworks based on research and collaboration with communities, while being encouraged to document the creative process in any way they see fit (e.g. images, texts, sketches, notes, GIFs), giving the audience the opportunity to follow along.

We aspire to feature the synergies in our website and keep the produced content (final artwork, documented process, community materials) accessible over time in the form of digital community archives. In addition, the 1st Art Pluriverse Community Science Edition will be published as an open-access zine publication, where participants and collaborators can take part and contribute through a day of zine jam.

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Selection Committee:

Dr. Janis Jefferies, artist, researcher, theorist and Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts at the Department of Computing Goldsmiths, University of London. – Read more

Dr. Vasiliki Rokou, Emeritus Professor of Historical and Social Anthropology at the Department of History and Archeology, University of Ioannina. – Read more

OLOOP, design group founded in 2003 by three textile designers and artists: Tjaša Bavcon (MA), Jasmina Ferček (MA) and Katja Burger Kovič (Assistant Professor at the University of Ljubljana). They work in many different fields of visual arts and design, including product design, spatial design, textile art and participatory art. – Read more

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HOW TO APPLY

For communities:
Send us a brief description of your work around textiles (texts, photos, links).
All applying communities and GLAM-represented collections will have the opportunity to be featured in our website, in an encompassing index of textile-related communities.
>>Go to Application Form

For artists:
Send us your statement and a link to your portfolio, along with your idea for a research- and community-based artwork related to textiles that can be gradually co-created in a timespan of 2 weeks (through an indicative average of 4 meetings). If you are an artist who is already working with a community please let us know. Each selected proposal will be awarded with a honorarium of 300  Euros.
>> Go to Application Form

Deadline:  Sunday, November 1st 2020, 24h00 (UTC)
Selection announcement: mid-November
Event launch: 3rd December – Event conclusion: 23rd December
For inquiries please send an email at: biennalebowb(at)gmail(dot)com, indicating “Open Call for Communities & Artists” on the subject line.

FAIR Community Archives

For Participants

Deadline: Sunday, November 1st 2020, 24h00 (UTC)

Art Pluriverse: A Community Science Series, will be launched in December 2020, as part of the Biennale of Western Balkans’ year round programme, starting this year with the Textile Month edition. The programme will include an online course where participants will learn to create FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) community-based archives, develop cultural data mindfulness and enhance their knowledge in digital cultural heritage and Open GLAM practices.

We invite Open GLAM enthusiasts, students, researchers, curators, educators and cultural professionals from the local and international scene to take part in the 1st Art Pluriverse Community Science Programme for arts and culture. Up to five (5) selected participants will have the opportunity to familiarise with ethical ways of working together with cultural communities and documenting community data, with the aim to develop digital community archives based on openness standards. Each participant will be able to choose one community and follow the distance learning course that will last approximately two weeks. The goal is to develop cultural data-mindfulness and engage in a brief outcome along two weeks of developing FAIR community-based archives.

We aspire to promote the community archives and the participants’ endeavour through our organisation and partnering GLAM institutions, while supporting open access and sovereignty of data by the communities. In addition, the 1st Art Pluriverse Community Science Edition will be published as an open-access zine publication, where participants and collaborators can take part and contribute through a day of zine jam.

Upon completion of the programme, each participant will receive a qualified certificate, under the auspices of the History of Art Laboratory, School of Fine Arts, University of Ioannina.

Programme outline:
4 online meetings overall (1-2 hours each) with course-lessons on community archives, open GLAM practices and digital tools, with project tasks.

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Selection Committee:

Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann), longtime member of Creative Commons and is currently working at the Open GLAM initiative. – Read more

Dr. Cleo Gougoulis, assistant professor of Folk and Popular Culture at the Department of History and Archaeology (former Department of Cultural Heritage Management and New Technologies) and serves as the Deputy Head of the Department at the University of Patras in Greece. – Read more

Dr. Dorina Xheraj-Subashi, lecturer and researcher of Museology-Culture Heritage at the University Aleksander Moisiu in Albania and is the Albania Country Coordinator for Interpret Europe. – Read more

HOW TO APPLY

Introduce yourself and express your interest in participating in the upcoming programme. With the generous support of our partners, registration is made free for participants!
>> Go to Application Form

Deadline: Sunday, November 1st 2020, 24h00 (UTC)
Selection announcement: mid-November
Event launch: 3rd December, 2020 – Event conclusion: 23rd December, 2020
For inquiries please send an email at: biennalebowb(at)gmail(dot)com, indicating “Open Call for Participants” on the subject line.