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Slovensky

OPEN CALL: INSTEAD OF

Invitations Intermedia Photography and New Media Studio about Photography

After last year's exhibition Rozptyl, we formed the independent association Vox Loci, represented by Hugo Raýman, Kristína Majvitorová, Lukáš Sobota, Richard Hronský and Adam Balogh. We invite you to participate in an open call, the selection of which will result in the next event (a visual art exhibition) in another unused house. The call is open to all who are interested. We are focusing on applications for visual arts projects.

When?

  • Open Call DEADLINE: 19.05.2024, 23:59 CEST

  • Exhibition duration: 16.08. – 13.09.2024

Exhibition Location?

  • Ventúrska 4, Bratislava, SK

 

* Introduction: * Theme * Open call requirements * DEADLINE * Full open call information *

Introduction:

Even in the central parts of cities, where we have the feeling that every square meter is used, there are many abandoned buildings, and yet they do not look like dilapidated ruins at all to the cursory glance of passers-by. The contrast between the vibrant centre and the spaces that mask the fact that they are empty with a façade that resembles a film set is the focus of our exhibition. We can imagine such a place "after/without man" as a kind of urban wilderness, which we can explore under certain circumstances. Something like a mysterious cave, whose entrance is not covered by a slope, but is located behind a door with the inscription "Authorized personnel only".

The original purpose of the house on Ventúrska 4 is barely discernible here anymore, and the future one is apparently not yet drawn either. The building is enclosed in its own momentary timelessness. The spaces are stripped of the specificity that their use originally gave them. What was once an apartment, the back of a bar, an office, or a warehouse is now all reduced to the same level of basic walls. Such a space has a character about as distinctive as a pile of dust or scratched plaster. It radiates only anonymity and leaves everything that has happened and will happen in it to our imagination.

If the façade of our building has the qualities of a set, its empty interior opens the possibility of creating a film set. A small world within a world, created against an empty backdrop of naked walls that somehow bear an authentic coating, a patina of times long past. From tiny remnants to such prominent ones as the inscription on the façade – Town house of Resistance Fighters. In this setting, we have a unique opportunity to develop from a state of passive "timelessness" diverse reflections on its past, possible future, function and features reflected from our present. Reflections on ourselves in the places we build, inhabit, use and leave.

 

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Theme:

The very title of the exhibition "Instead Of" opens up several contradictions, the highlighting of which should form the main thematic approaches. Instead of what? Instead of whom? Instead of something? Such and similar questions lead to themes such as exclusive - inclusive, public - private, purposeful - purposeless, technical - organic, and, in the context of the whole building, owned and used – owned and unused. At the same time, can we imagine an alternative to the current state of affairs? Can we change it? In both a technical and a social sense. The artistic responses and contributions of our exhibition can be carried out in this direction. Their aim is to imagine the diverse possibilities to give expression, story and a new personality back to individual rooms.

It will therefore be about the author's re-arrangement of the building, not necessarily in a literal sense, although ready-made use of furniture is welcome. The works can either be a kind of furnishing themselves or work in a logical context with the exhibition architecture elements supporting/complementing the works to create a furnishing effect.

The conception of the theme is open to all possible approaches, from the critical, the political, the dreamlike and the intimate to the dys(u)topical and the fictional. A view through a keyhole into a room, or through a barred window. An open space with a minimalist intervention of subtle diaristic text, or furniture completed with images. The packed boxes of the outgoing, the tidy space of the incoming. Ironic visions of the future, romantic recollections and gestures of manifestation calling for a more just utopia. What portrait hangs above the desk of the room's fictional occupant? If this were my room what would it be like? Can I make better use of this room? Can I give it a new purpose? Are the kitsch computer graphics of teenagers born at the end of the millennium already full of deep sentimentality? And how have the slogans for a better world held up? What does the sign on the façade of the building evoke in us? How do we relate to its past. How do we feel about it in our present? And what might it mean for us in the future?

In this way we might be able to probe our thinking about space and our present in the context of the passage of time and the space we inhabit.

 

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Open call requirements

  1. Contact form (civil/artistic name, phone number, email, year of birth, country of origin/activity)
  2. Brief CV + portfolio (.pdf format/internet links)
  3. Project proposal:
    • in case of finished work: photo documentation, annotation, text + sketch of the proposal solution (architecture, installation) for this exhibition
    • in case of a work created specifically for this exhibition: text + sketch (visualization) of the intended work thematically, technically, materially (a tour of the space will be possible on 05.05.2024 from 12:00 to 17:00)
    • in both cases the medium of installation is preferred for the concept of the exhibition, however, it is not necessary and it is required in the case of another approach to propose (even small or ready-made e.g. furniture, a cochlea, etc.) an architectural complement or placement of the work, which will refer to the theme of furnishing the interior - however, it should not be an end in itself, it should consciously complement the exhibited work

Preferred:

  • for the concept of the exhibition the medium of installation (but not necessary)
  • artworks independent of electricity (for technical reasons)

 

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DEADLINE:

  • 19.05.2024, 23:59 CEST

  • Send applications to:

  • Evaluation of the open call: 31.05.2024

 

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Full open call information

 

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Miesto toho OPENCALL - graphic poster