
TRANSVERSAL AESTHETICS – IMMUNITY / COMMUNITY
A hybrid research and artistic production residency.
Huarte, Villava y Burlada (Navarra).
IDENSITAT + Centro Huarte / WHO CARES?
IDENSITAT and CENTRO HUARTE have begun the Transversals Aesthetics / IMMUNITY/COMMUNITY programme, developing a project of research and artistic production contextualised, socially and culturally, within the towns of Huarte, Burlada and Villava (Navarra). The programme will run between 2021-2022, as part of Who Cares?
We propose an open call in two phases. The first consists of a call for artists and collectives to present a pre-project, and from among the proposals received in this initial phase, three will be selected to advance to the second phase. These three proposals will each receive a remuneration of €200, so that the artists/collectives may develop and expand upon their pre-project presentation. In this second phase, consultations may take place between the organisers and the artists/collectives, in order to adjust proposals in accordance with the structural framework proposed by the organisation. Of these three projects, one will be chosen to be carried out.
Preselection results: Open Call: Transversal Aesthetics - IMMUNITY / COMMUNITY
A jury made up of Idensitat and Centro Huarte has preselected three proposals that will each receive a remuneration of 200€ to present a more elaborate development of their projects. In this second phase, consultations may take place between the organisers and the artists/collectives, in order to adjust proposals in accordance with the structural framework proposed by the organisation. One of the three projects will be chosen to be carried out at Centro Huarte next fall.
SELECTED PROJECT:
Fuegos de alto grado, by Sara García
Preselected proposals:
Conspirando con el agua / Conspiring with the water, by Sara Herrera and Eloise Maltby
Careflow, by Nadja Okruhlicová and Britta Braun
Thank you for the participation and the quality of the proposals we've received.
CALL FOR PROJECTS
IDENSITAT and CENTRO DE ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO DE HUARTE offer a residency to one artist, or collective of artists, to develop a project within the social context of the towns of Huarte, Burlada and Villava (Navarra). The residency is proposed as a hybrid of on-site and remote work in order to complete the project. The on-site period will last approximately five weeks between October 2021 and April 2022, to be specified as per the availability of the selected artist or collective and the organisers, depending upon the project and with the option of dividing the on-site work in two periods.
TARGET GROUP
The call is aimed at artists or collectives interested in developing an artistic project within the social contexts in which the proposal is set, and on the specific theme proposed. Proficiency in Spanish and / or Basque will be valued positively. In the event that English should be the main language used in the project, translation should be considered as part of the production, in those activities that may require translation.
GRANTS
The selected proposal will be granted 3000 euros in fees and expenses, and up to 1000 euros for help with travel and accommodation. A maximum of 2000 euros will be available for production.
DOCUMENTATION TO SUBMIT
In this edition of Transversal Aesthetics, within the framework of Who Cares?, we also aim to put caring in the very centre of our working methodologies, and to take this opportunity to rethink the models of the open call. For this reason, and due to the specific nature of the theme, we propose an open call in two phases. The first consists of a call for artists and collectives to present a pre-project, and from among the proposals received in this initial phase, three will be selected to advance to the second phase. These three proposals will each receive a remuneration of €200, so that the artists/collectives may develop and expand upon their pre-project presentation. In this second phase, consultations may take place between the organisers and the artists/collectives, in order to adjust proposals in accordance with the structural framework proposed by the organisation. Of these three projects, one will be chosen to be carried out.
Phase 1
Proposals should be sent in digital format using the specific form, filling in each of the required fields, and attached in a single document using PDF format (maximum 8 gigabytes), which must include:
- Proposal / pre-project: a written document defining the basic lines of the project (1 page), indicating a working methodology which takes into account the elements indicated above.
- A maximum of 5 images of previous work and/or work related to the themes of the proposal, to facilitate understanding of the project (or link to a web page)
- CVs of all project members, specifying one representative in the case of a group application, or an individual CV, in the case of an individual application. (1 page)
- Contact details (name, telephone number, e-mail and postal address).
Phase 2
- An interview with representatives of the organisation
- A project plan, including objectives, methodology, activities and a calendar of work.
- Additional materials which will help convey a deeper understanding of the nature of the project.
The deadline for the first phase of the open call is Thursday, June 23rd, 2021.
The deadline date for the second phase will be communicated to those on the shortlist of three in due course.
> ACCESS TO APPLICATION FORM HERE
Project written in Spanish, Basque, Catalan or English.
SELECTION CRITERIA
According to these rules, the selection of projects will be made between Idensitat and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Huarte in accordance with the proposed theme.
To be considered:
The quality of the proposal, the relevance in accordance with the main theme of the call, and the sustainability of the project.
DATES
The project will be carried out within a five-week residency, divided into one stay of 1 or 2 weeks, and a later period of 3 or 4 weeks’ stay, both to take place between October 2021 and April 2022, the details to be specified taking into consideration the availability of the selected artist or group and the promoting organisations. The spaces available for the presentation of results and the performance of activities related to the project will be, apart from the Centro Huarte itself, the venues managed by the Mancomunidad de la Comarca de Pamplona (Commonwealth of the Pamplona Region), the Batán and the Molino de San Andrés (Atarrabia- Villava).
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
The selected works will remain the property of the artist(s). IDENSITAT and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Huarte, as promoters of TRANSVERSAL AESTHETICS – IMMUNITY-COMMUNITY, may reproduce and distribute, by means of on-line publications or in paper format, the whole or part of the programme, while always citing the corresponding credits for creators and participating agents.This edition is part of the European project WHO CARES? from which IDENSITAT and Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Huarte will archive all documentation generated as part of this open call, as well as that arising from the development of the project as a whole.
INTRODUCTION
Transversal Aesthetics is a project for research and experimentation on the intersection between art, mediation and social space. A place of confluence between artistic practices as a vehicle for critical research; mediation activities as a vehicle for the production of content, interaction and learning transfer; and the urban context as a vehicle for connecting specific themes of work to a specific active social space relevant to these themes. A project which takes shape in medium-sized urban spaces, as generators of social, cultural and environmental spaces at the boundaries between rural and urban. The project is founded upon the cross-disciplinary dimension of art, in order to combine experiences and activities which impact upon unique elements on the basis of common themes and strategies shared among various participating agents and bodies. Transversal Aesthetics is a project promoted jointly by Idensitat and Centro Huarte, and this fourth edition is part of the European cooperation project Who Cares?. [+INFO previous Transversal Aesthetics projects] [+INFO about WHO CARES?]
WORKING CONTEXT
The town of Huarte, where the Huarte Contemporary Art Centre is located, stands next to the towns of Burlada and Villava on the outskirts of Pamplona. The three localities follow the course of the river Arga, which has generated historical and cultural links between them. In recent years, the boundaries between natural, rural and urban areas in these towns have been modified, due to urban and population growth, the conversion of allotment gardens into leisure spaces, and the flow and periodic overspills of the river. More recently, socio-cultural behaviours connected to this region have also been modified, due to changes in habit forced by restrictions on travel and the decrease in social interaction, as well as other circumstances arising from the generalised context of the current pandemic.
After an open call, the selected project must focus on the new ecosystem shaped by social distancing, individualisation, de-socialisation, communal isolation, the increase in techno-presentiality, the fear of contagion, or the desire to achieve immunity. It must investigate and explore the textural and dimensional aspects related to the working context, in order to activate working processes which approach themes connected to realities, fictions, utopias, dystopias or eco-socio-cultural heterotopias; from imagining other possible ecosystems, to analysing the existing ecosystem in order to address certain realities, or to construct fictions that generate other possible realities. The activation of the territorial node, that is, the grouping of locally involved participants, and the mediation activities, will be accomplished by local collectives, and individuals interested in involving themselves in this particular field of work. The selected project will work within this context, and on the predefined theme.
SUBJECT AREA: IMMUNITY COMMUNITY
The work of the project will be based upon the tensions, paradoxes or connections generated by the words Community and Immunity, while also connecting these concepts to the Arga River, or its urban configuration, modelled along the course of the river as it passes through the towns of Huarte, Villava and Burlada.
Ordinarily, the concept of community is used to emphasise the importance of a group of people who share elements in common that lend the group a certain distinctive character, elements such as identity, place, ideology, beliefs; elements of belonging to a collective (or group of people) that maintains connective bonds between them, and that, for one reason or another, differentiates group members in relation to members of other groups. The concept of immunity is reappearing strongly in this specific context of the pandemic, and is related to community in the sense that it refers to that which protects from constant external dangers. From this perspective, community and immunity form a whole that withdraws into itself, attempting to establish protection and isolation, and to avoid any kind of external contagion.
Both concepts are dealt with by Roberto Espósito[1],in a direction that we are interested in taking up in order to adapt them for this project. According to the author, bearing in mind the etymological roots of the words, and interrogating the neoconservative and negative component that they imply, he suggests that the community opens up and exposes the individual, turning him towards his own exterior, liberates him towards his externality. It is not the place of identity, of belonging, of appropriation, but on the contrary, of plurality, of difference or otherness. Immunity, according to Esposito, causes the individual to withdraw inside himself, confines him in his own skin, brings the exterior back to the interior, eliminates it as outside. It is in this sense, of counter-forces operating in both concepts, that we are interested in relating them to the idea of care. In a context such as the present one, immunity is perceived as the general objective, as the globalised cure that must preserve the different communities from contagion. And, extending beyond the sanitary, it is established in policies that reaffirm national, neighbourhood and domestic territories. The techno-policies of immunity and fear contribute to generate closed communities that favor inequality.
The philosophy of care in which this project is inserted, in the framework of Who Cares?, is premised upon imagining possible futures in which mutual care and care of our environment are foregrounded, for an improvement in subjective relationships, and a recovery of the community as a res publica, as a space of the common. It is from this perspective that we posit a critical working space, problematising the concepts of community and immunity, taking the Arga River as a context, and as a metaphor for common space; but also as a metaphor for the flux of connections with the outside, with the other, as a connecting element of hybrid logics between the natural, the rural and the urban, as a channel opening out and occasionally overspilling, in which contagion acquires a positive character, since it allows the incorporation of strange new organisms, to survive them, and to rediscover the equilibrium that helps in recovering the loss of sociability in the context of the pandemic. If the raw material of social life is co-presential interactive sociability[2]. We are now subjected to a regime in which this co-presential interaction is subject to the strategy of isolation, and the construction of the community bubble. This fruitful and contradictory relationship between community, immunity, care and territory is what encourages us to send out this open call for projects that propose creative responses to the complexity of this approach, which is at the same time the complexity of our most recent contemporaneity.
METHODOLOGY
The work carried out as part of Transversal Aesthetics will follow three common strands: organising a temporary artistic residence, with the participation of an artist or a collective as creator and researcher within the context; setting up a local node involving various regional agents and associations; and organising a transfer of knowledge and learning related to other fields and subjects, in a suite of measures which we will denominate as Mediation Activities. These three strands may cross over, they may work in unison, or they may coexist in parallel, so that at least two of them will work together on the same project.
The local nodes may comprise a number of agents, organisations or individuals with an interest in participating in the project, or who are associated with the social, artistic or research aspects of the theme. These nodes will be formed prior to the development of the artistic project and/or mediation activities, and may vary in character, or may grow larger as time goes on. The artist or collective must propose a project involving the node, and must add their own agents to the network, who may become more or less involved, depending upon their role within the project’s framework. The project will be carried out in a triangular fashion, proposing activities or interventions in public space, open presentations and production of results.
[1] Espósito, R. (2009). Comunidad, Inmunidad y Biopolítica. Barcelona: Herder
Espósito, R. (2003). Communitas. Origen y destino de la comunidad. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu
[2] Martuccelli, D. (2021). La tecnología anti-socioLógica y tecno-experta de la Pandemia del Covid-19. En Papeles del CEIC. http://dx.doi.org/10.1387/pceic.21916