Open call for UNIDEE 2021: Groundwork for Embedded Arts Practice

UNIDEE residency programs and Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto are pleased to invite applications for participation in this season’s UNIDEE residency programs. Curated by Andy Abbott, the theme is ”Groundwork for Embedded Arts Practice”.

In 2020 more than 40 international participants took part in the UNIDEE residency programme exploring what’s next? for embedded arts practice in a post-pandemic future. 

The 2021 program aims to further and deepen this conversation with a specific focus on alternative structures, frameworks, ecologies and organisational forms for socially engaged art projects, and the groundwork required to build and sustain them. How are artists and artworkers laying the foundations for new realities through creative approaches to collaboration, exchange, economy, labour, policy, pedagogy and networks? How essential is this infrastructure to the success of socially transformative art projects? In what spaces, places and contexts can it emerge and grow? To what extent can we consider its development a part of the practice, and how can we maintain it together? 

The residency is an opportunity to collectively and collaboratively address these questions through the sharing and reflection of ongoing practice and practice-led research. Over ten weeks from May to July 2021, the residency will provide a forum for practitioners from a range of backgrounds to gain new perspective and develop their practice through a programme of peer-to-peer learning.

To read the curatorial statement click here.

How will it work?
In order to accommodate ongoing global social distancing measures and travel restrictions the bulk of the residency will be delivered and accessed remotely, with an option to undertake your one-week intensive in Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella (Northern Italy) for those able and willing to travel.

Participants will bring their ongoing practice, research or project to the residency to share and develop over the ten weeks. The development of your project will be facilitated by a programme of peer-to-peer learning including group critiques, seminars, meetings/visits and collective exhibition and publication, facilitated by the UNIDEE team.

Participants will also benefit from perspectives, workshops, and mentoring opportunities from guest practitioners, curators, collectives, arts organisers and academics. Invited guests and case studies include economic geographer and co-author of Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities Professor Katherine Gibson (Australia); artist Jeanne van Heeswijk (the Netherlands); community economies platform The Interdependence (artists Kathrin Böhm, Kate Rich, Bianca Elzembauer) with researcher and curator Aria Spinelli; Decentralising Political Economies (presented by researcher/curator Alessandra Saviotti and artist Owen Griffiths); artist, academic and curator of the feminist DIY virtual collective Ladyz in Noyz Marlo De Lara (USA); nomadic postcapitalist think-tank Institute of Radical Imagination (represented by artists and academics Massimiliano Mollona, Marco Baravalle and Emanuele Braga), Mexico City-based collective Cráter Invertido (Mexico), Wharf Chambers Co-operative Club (UK)–a worker’s co-op run cultural venue in Leeds; Pyramid a collective of around 150 artists with and without learning disabilities and artist-facilitator, museum professional and academic Jade French (UK); and artist, activist, and author of Art as Social Action and Dark Matter Gregory Sholette (USA).

The programme will also include workshops and discussions with organisations in Cittadellarte and Biella including Let.Eat.Bi, Art of Demopraxy, Cittadellarte Fashion B.E.S.T, Hydro, Learning Environment, Visible Project, PACE Futuro.

Who is it for and what is expected from me?
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 wish to develop during the residency via an ongoing project or action research. 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.

For the bulk of the residency you will work and develop your ongoing project/action research independently and take part in weekly webinars on Saturdays (aside from in the two week break in June). Whilst we do not expect a predetermined or final outcome from your project you will be asked to give regular updates and share a ‘trace’ or ‘mark’ of the project at various points across the residency (using an online platform). As such you are expected to be regularly capturing or producing shareable material as part of your process.

Participants will need to be able to engage with the full ten weeks of the program that will take place between May 1 and July 10, 2021, and commit to a one-week intensive in this period. The one-week intensive is an opportunity to focus, unpack, develop and share your project with others. It runs from Monday to Monday and participants wishing to undertake the intensive at Cittadellarte must arrive in Biella the Sunday and leave on Tuesday so as to allow for an overlap day with the subsequent group when applicable. 

The seven slots for the one-week intensive are:
–May: 3–10, 10–17, 17–24, 24–30
–Two week programme break for independent research
–June: 14–21, 21–28, 28–July 4

In your application you will be asked to let us know if there are any weeks you can definitely not do your one-week intensive (either online or in presence 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, for those that choose to spend their one-week intensive in presence, 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 requirements:
–Indicate the weeks of preference of the one-week intensive (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 ongoing project or research that you will share and develop as part of the residency including details about the local context (place, communities, audiences) and what long-term change you could hope to facilitate. Please note the project does not necessarily need to be already established and there is no expectation that it should have a pre-defined or final output in the time of residency. We do however wish to mark and trace the development and the progress of the project through the residency, and ground the learning in your practice. As such the project should be ready to move beyond the ‘idea’ stage and into testing and application at the start of the residency;
–Up to 150 words about the network or ecosystem you feel your practice is part of and how you would like to investigate, develop and/or expand this through the residency;
–and a CV / Portfolio in PDF format.
Total weight of attachments in one email: max 6mb.

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

Applicants must submit their application by email to: unidee [​at​] cittadellarte.it stating: “UNIDEE 2021 residency application (your name)” as a subject line.

Deadline for submissions is April 5, 5pm and we will let successful applicants know a decision by April 9.

Partners
UNIDEE patrons are Piedmont Region, Compagnia di San Paolo, CRT Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, Creative Europe for “Alexandria (re)activating common urban imaginaries” and  for “STARTS4Water”, illycaffè S.p.A.