Open Call – Drop of Water Under a New Tongue

Drop of Water under a New Tongue

Milan, Fabbrica del Vapore
July 3^rd-23^rd 2024

Curated by:
Ivana Meštrov

Supported by:
Municipality of Milan – Fabbrica del Vapore

In partnership with:
Clube Português de Artes e Ideias
Department of Contemporary Culture
of the Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus

In collaboration with
BJCEM
Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean

DEADLINE

June 11th 2024, 10am CEST

WHAT

Drop of Water under a New Tongue is a 20-day intensive residency program supported by Municipality of Milan – Fabbrica del Vapore, Clube Português de Artes e Ideias, Department of Contemporary Culture of the Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus and developed in collaboration with BJCEM – Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean.

Fabbrica del Vapore is an important Milanese hub of creativity and innovation. The residency will be organized in this direction, giving the venue a strong connotation of a welcome place, an incubator of new ideas where an exchange among the artists of the residency, the curator and the place will permit to carry on research, new artistic practices, and peer to peer learning.

THE OBJECTIVES

• Opening up to various contexts, non-centralized forms of representation and plural identity perspectives through the creative languages of visual, multimedia, and performative arts;
• Promoting and enhancing the work of young international artists, who will obtain an important showcase for their practices;
• Fostering new paths to being, becoming and reimagining in the post-digital age;
• Offering the artists the chance to embrace other peers and the curator experience.

Artists are invited to conceive a process-based project, collaborate with local communities and professionals to present their practices, or further develop their existing research.

The working group Drop of Water under a New Tongue will be composed of:

• Ivana Meštrov, curator of the residency;
• Up to 4 selected artists coming from Portugal, Italy and Cyprus selected through this international Open Call.

GENERAL CURATORIAL CONCEPT

The second international residency of the aligned BJCEM – Fabbrica del Vapore Artist-in-Residency titled Drop of Water under a New Tongue focuses on the paradoxes of connective, exploring the pouring and controlling of the subjective as well as the objective in the era of digital shifts, and the potential of glitch, as an incentive to hear one another in the middle of the current turmoil of our daily life. Even though the term glitch is usually used in digital domain, it is here borrowed from L. Russell’s glitch feminism, which points out to the problem in social structure disrupted by economical, racial, social, sexual, and cultural stratification and imperialistic processes that continue to violate our bodies. The glitch in the structure, therefore, is not a mistake, but rather the opposite, a correction or at least an extension, to begin with.

Over the past decade, especially in recent years, there has been a mutation from the conjunctive form of bodily communication to the connective, as noted by F. Bifo. As we seek different beginnings amid growing uncertainty, social polarity and economic precarity, we increasingly recognize that reality is not just there for us but must be sought and conquered anew through manifold new strategies of connectivity, intersectional and transhistorical research, collaboration and interaction beyond the human. Only then can our bodies, as solitary carriers, potentially deliver us into the future, which will in turn carry us like a drop of water under a new tongue.

An Artist-in-Residency program offers fertile ground for these inquiries bringing together diverse practitioners, enhancing the complexities of their genealogies, living and working conditions, and creating spaces for research, exchange and solidarity, while encouraging productive dialogues with the new context.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA AND APPLICATION PROCEDURE

The call is open to artists who work in visual arts, applied arts, new media, photography, and performance. To be eligible, candidates must be under 35 (born after 1988) and come from or be based in the following territories:

• Portugal (two available positions)
• Italy (one available position)
• Cyprus (one available position)

Eligible candidates shall send the following material:

1. Portfolio: an updated portfolio documenting their artistic practice and past and current projects (compressed PDF);
2. Motivation letter;
3. Application form duly filled in, downloadable here.

The application (portfolio, motivation letter and application form) must be sent to application@bjcem.org not later than June 11^th 2024, 10 am CEST. Any application not complying with the requirements will be automatically rejected.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION

• Participation in this call is free of charge.
• Each selected artist will receive a participation fee of 300 Euro; a production fee of 350 Euro; and a total per diem of 300 Euro, covered by the partner of reference. The non-resident selected artists will be provided a round ticket from and to the city indicated in the application form, covered by the partner of reference, and the Municipality of Milan will guarantee them accommodation in the facilities of Fabbrica Del Vapore.
• Only the selected artists will be contacted by email. The selection results will be announced on the BJCEM website (bjcem.org) by June 18^th 2024.
• Each selected artist commits to be available to participate in the residency from JULY 3rd to 23rd 2024.
• The residency will be structured as an open studio. In dialogue with the curator, artists are expected to present the outcome of their residencies on the occasion of a public presentation at Fabbrica del Vapore on July 22^nd 2024.
• No shipment costs are considered. Artists can bring with them the produced materials after the public presentation.
• A complete photo/video documentation will be produced.
• These outcomes may also be presented in the framework of other upcoming BJCEM projects.

 PRIVACY AND AUTHORIZATION TO USE INFORMATION

• By filling out the participation form, each artist authorizes the use of their image/voice and the reproduction of their research outcome for promotional purposes and dissemination activities.

 DATA PROTECTION

• By submitting this application, you consent to the collection, processing, and storage of your personal data for the purpose of evaluating your eligibility for participation in the project. Your data will be treated confidentially and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

NOTES

This call and the participation in this project do not preclude the possibility to apply for future BJCEM national and/or international calls with different personal projects. All the artists who have already participated in the previous editions of the Biennale can apply to this call. Priority will be given to artists who have never attended previous BJCEM activities.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

bjcem.aisbl@gmail.com 

The residency program is supported by the Municipality of Milan – Fabbrica del Vapore, in partnership with Clube Português de Artes e Ideias, Department of Contemporary Culture of the Deputy Ministry of Culture of Cyprus, and in collaboration with BJCEM – Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean.