Empathy and Sustainability: The Art of Thinking Like a Mountain
Artistic Residencies Programme 2023
The artists that will participate in the 2023 Programme are:
Veredas Lopez
Born in Seville (1982), she spent her childhood in Malaga, where she soon became fascinated by the street sculptures of Chema Lumbreras. After studying Fine Arts in Seville, she worked as a sculptor for several international film shoots in Paris, Brussels and Alicante. She got a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service, attending the Art Academy in Munich and started to be influenced by the use of color in Franz Ackerman's work. Today her studio is in Seville.
Her work is based on the relationship of the self with his/her social and natural environment. She mixes situations, people and common places with imaginary dreamlike scenarios. Experimentation and innovation with recycled material is central to her work and she has created pioneering techniques to transform discarded objects. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Malaga, at the CEART Museum in Madrid and internationally in Germany, Armenia, Japan and Taiwan.
Alva Moca
Graduated in Advertising at the University of Segovia. Later he studied Digital Illustration, Graphic Design, Film Post-production, Editing and Animation in Madrid. He has also studied engraving, drawing and silkscreen printing in Chile. He completes his self-taught training in mural format. Graduated in Advertising at the University of Segovia. Later he studied Digital Illustration, Graphic Design, Film Post-production, Editing and Animation in Madrid. He has also studied engraving, drawing and silkscreen printing in Chile. He completes his self-taught training in mural format.
His graphic work is a mixture of cyanotype, collage, illustration, mural, painting and recycling, all of this with a great influence of graphic design, travelling through galleries and festivals in Spain, Chile, Italy, Ecuador, Mexico,Iceland, USA, England, Peru, France, Portugal, Iceland, etc.
He has worked as a graphic designer for Pedro Almodovar and recently as a muralist for Daniel Sanchez Arévalo. Awarded with the Ramón Acín scholarship, his artistic career has been divided between artistic residencies, fairs, exhibitions and commercial works of graphic art.
He collaborates with the galleries Duran gallery, DMG, La CArboneria, Kreisler, Swinton & Grant, Duran, Galeria Anto- nia Puyó, Ladoce and Vmt design. Art Director of the GUDWUD project and creator of the illustrated book HÉROS. His artistic career includes the creation of the art collective together with his brother FRATELLI MOCA Art Director of GUDWUD. www.gudwud.es
Portfolio: @alva_moca
Venelin Shurelov
Has authored various interactive installations/performances, some of which are "Drawing machine" (2005), "Fantomat” (2008), "Orthoman" (2009) “Tabula Rasa” (2010), the cyber lecture “Man Ex Machina” (2011), “Shooting Gallery” (2012), "Rotor" (2016) - presented at Ars Electronica center, Linz. In 2016 he directs a durational performance/installation "Post-Everything", as a guest lecturer at Towson University, USA. In 2020 he realized the interactive installation in public space One Person - Urban Electronic Corpus.
His works explore the transitional states of the human body by focusing on his marginalization. They also relate on decoding the language of modern myths and encoding them in new creatures, to the intersection between man and technology, human and subhuman as a sub-product of the social, political, economical and cultural situation. His projects are multifaceted and include drawings, interactive installation and performances, digital technologies, video and art theory. He has had a number of stage design projects, individual exhibitions and participations in general exhibitions and festivals in Bulgaria, Europe and USA. Awarded many times for his work in theater and contemporary art. Lives and works in Sofia, Bulgaria
About
Four partner institutions of the European project EMPACT invite artists to apply for short-term artist-in-residence programmes in: Athens (Greece), Madrid (Spain), Sofia (Bulgaria), Taleggio Valley (Italy). Selected participants are invited to develop works relating to the themes of the project EMPACT - Empathy and Sustainability: The Art of Thinking Like a Mountain and explore how these broad topics can be interconnected. They will do so by relating to particularities of the local character and context of each residency and host institution. Artists will produce work in various media and artistic fields, depending on the mandate of each inviting institution (e.g., visual arts, performing arts, creative writing, philosophy). New works will be presented to the public at the end of each residency and later a selection of the artworks will be jointly presented in an exhibition at Vorres Museum in Athens. The residencies will take place in the summer and autumn of 2023.
Where
Each applicant can select up to two preferred hosts. Before applying, the applicants are advised to look into each partner institution and select the one that best matches their interests and artistic portfolio. Residencies will take place in Vorres Museum (Greece), Espacio Rojo (Spain), Nature, Art & Habitat Residency (NAHR) (Italy) and The National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts (NATFA) (Bulgaria), at:
NAHR fellows will visit high and low pastures, walk across the mountains and landscapes (natural and built), attend and participate to dedicated lectures by specialists and have the opportunity for site-specific investigations in the area and topics related to EMPACT and to NAHR 2023 Topic AIR: Commons, Chaotic Fluid, Inspiration.
Vorres Museum will provide visual artists – working in all media – the opportunity to gain an in-depth knowledge of Greek modern art through their engagement with the museum’s permanent collection and immerse themselves in developing artworks relating to the given subject. Residents will be able to take advantage of its scenic natural environment – a paradigm of Mediterranean gardening redefined in the light of climate change, focusing on a sustainable approach.
NATFA’s residency theme is ‘Water: Memory & Movement’ and will be on the creation of a performative story, focusing on artists’ own resilience and sustainability. The residency will take place in the town of Sozopol on the Black Sea and residents will have the opportunity to get inspired by the beauty of the sea, rivers, and mountain areas in the region, as well as by the rich cultural heritage of the ancient city. The residency is organised in collaboration with the Apollonia Festival of the Arts and participants can attend a number of arts and culture events during this period.
Espacio Rojo artists will be able to facilitate empathic and sustainable art creation on the theme “Nature, Health and Care’ in the urban environment with vulnerable groups for social inclusion and change in collaboration in diverse sites, scales and cultural institutions to be confirmed. Dates:
NAHR: 4 July – 16 July 2023
Vorres Museum: 31 July – 11 August 2023
NATFA: 26 August – 6 September 2023
Espacio Rojo: 16 September – 29 September 2023
Aim
EMPACT initiates a dialogue between artists, sustainability experts, philosophers and social scientists, in order to explore the importance of empathy as a key to aid people tackle and act upon climate change. Specifically, EMPACT aims to facilitate artists in creating, through sustainable practices, art that fosters an empathic stance towards non-human beings and nature; that is, art that encourages people to relate to non-human suffering in a first-personal manner and thus acquire experiential knowledge about climate change related issues. EMPACT considers the artist's own emotional and empathic stance as a key point that will allow them to effectively incorporate the concept of sustainability in their artistic production.
Who can apply
The call is open to creative persons of all fields, backgrounds, working in any creative areas and in any medium. Applicants must be above the age of 21. Artists will be asked to state a preferred choice of the residency venue. Eligible applicants are individuals who are taxpayers in one of the project consortium countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Spain). The international jury consists of members from each partner institution. The selection criteria include originality, feasibility, and overall artistic quality of the proposals. Successful candidates are provided the space and critical context to push forward exciting art works and thinking models of re-learning to co-exist in empathetic environments and to produce sophisticated ecologies of shared futures.
Candidates are asked to submit their CVs (up to 4 pages), portfolio of recent creative projects (up to 6 pages, including illustrations) and short proposal for their project/relevant ongoing research that relates to the themes of empathy and sustainability and to the preferred residency host institution (up to 500 words).
Travel, accommodation, sustenance & deliverables
Artistic residencies will offer artists the chance to work with international collaborators (curators, cultural sector professionals) and create a new work of art at their equipped venues (see individual institution websites for details). During the residency, the resident will be expected to deliver a two hour presentation about their artistic practice to the public. The residencies will culminate in each host institution presenting the work to the public. The works co-produced at the residencies will also be presented on the EMPACT website. Selected artworks will be shown in an exhibition at the Vorres Museum (Athens).
The residency will cover (this may vary slightly from host institution to institution, see each for details):
Travel (up to 800 EUR), the use of trains are encouraged, when possible, to limit emissions, flights are economy class only – receipts to be provided;
Accommodation (arranged by the host institution);
Subsistence (up to 800 EUR), see each residency call for details.
Intellectual property on the work, created during the residence (including images, videos, files, etc.), belongs to the respective artists but is expected to be provided to the residency host institution and EMPACT project free of charge for dissemination and communication purposes.
Apply here: https://forms.gle/XMcuBxwsazwYpqgM8
Contact: info@empact-project.org
About EMPACT: www.empact-project.org
Disclaimer
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.