Wrocław Institute of Culture presenting „Culture Utopias” residency artists!
Together with our partners from Proto produkciia (UA) and Gabriela Tudor Foundation (RO), we have great news to start the New Year! We are presenting the profiles and ideas of three individuals who will participate in a double research-collaborative art residency in Bucharest and Wroclaw as part of the European project “What’s next?”.
Who were the people interested in participating and what applications did they make?
The year 2023 ended for us with, among other things, 222 applications for the Culture Utopias residency, which flowed in from Poland, Romania and Ukraine, but also from the Netherlands, France or Germany, where applicants currently reside. For formal reasons, we qualified 217 people. Disciplinary diversity emerged among this group, as we were able to get acquainted with the output and ideas of visual artists, cultural researchers, people involved in music, dance, theater or performance. A desire for collective action and openness to local participation recurred in the submissions, which fits perfectly with our idea of a double residency. The themes of well-being, ecology, war and migration, so important for building a safe, healthy space to live and work, resounded among the application topics.
Who will go to Bucharest and come to Wrocław?
We received 141 applications from Ukraine, among which the committee unanimously selected Mariia Bakalo, a dancer, performer, choreographer and educator, who, as part of the residency, would like to undertake the creation of a new language (in the bodily, artistic, poetic and verbal sense) applicable to our current reality, marked by war.
On the other hand, among the 58 Polish submissions, Paulina Woźniczka, co-founder of two collectives (Make Larmo, Queer Movement Academy), came to the fore, an artist who, based on the theory of queer ecology, erotica and choreography, proposed performative actions combining storytelling, fiction, magic and choreography of love as an alternative to the reality that burdens us.
The third person, selected from 14 Romanian applications, is Ari David – an artistic person working in the field of visual arts and performance, who dedicates the residence to a project exploring alternative performative strategies reflecting the relationship between the body and public space.
What’s next?
The selected participants will take part in the “Culture Utopias” residency, divided into two three-week slots. In early July, they will travel to Bucharest to focus on formulating a jointly developed concept for the project at AREAL, a space for choreographic development. Less than a month later, artists will come to Wrocław to test themselves in action and put the created ideas, concepts and scenarios to the testing process. This will be the time to conduct their own research, collaborate with the local community, develop participatory practices, formulate activities to foster the exchange of practices and knowledge sharing.
Congratulations!
Organizers:
Offered jointly by the Gabriela Tudor Foundation (Bucharest), Wroclaw Institute of Culture (Wroclaw) and proto produkciia (Kiev), the dual residency is first and foremost a safe space for exchange and collaboration. Together with our partners, we proceed from the assumption that change begins in interaction. The Culture Utopias residency is part of the project “What’s next? Safe cultural multi-spaces for multidisciplinary reflection on (post)war and (post)crisis European identity”, a project created in partnership between zusa (Germany), MitOst (Germany), MUSIKTHEATERTAGE WIEN (Austria), proto produkciia (Ukraine), Wroclaw Institute of Culture (Poland) and Gabriela Tudor Foundation (Romania). The project is co-financed by the European Union.
