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Open Call

Results

Catarina Vieira, Esther Rodriguez Barbero, and the collective made of Vasilis Ntouros, Dora Zoumba & Aris Papadopoulos will be joining us in PLANT to develop their own projects committed to artistic practices and methodologies capable of establishing strong connections with diverse places and contexts.

Stay tuned to find out more about them and their work!

Project Framework

Over 100 years ago, Raymond Duncan, advocating self-sufficiency and autonomy, developed a philosophy known as actionalism, which connects the body, labour and craft in the direction of personal development and well-being. We acknowledge this connection between art and life as one of the great potentials of Contextual Art Practices. A practice with a transdisciplinary approach demands a differentiated look, new references and critical research. By working on the tensions between the local and the global, we wish to propose methodologies that question certain specificities of territory - human or non-human - and at the same time launch the debate on broader scales, enhancing its adaptation to different contexts. Another field of investigation in PLANT relates to the introduction of Permaculture Principles into the process of art making: how do patterns and relationships found in nature provide us with alternative frameworks within which to develop artistic processes? The shared construction of a toolbox of methodologies around Contextual Art Practices is another of PLANT's aims, boosting the bonds between research and creation. 

Through a mutual exchange of experiences, local concerns, methodologies and tools, the project will conceive and develop new sustainable artistic methodologies based on Raymond Duncan’s heritage, the Permaculture principles and Contextual Art Practices while advocating the notion of ‘commons’ in art as a key concept in addressing urgent social and environmental challenges.

From October 2023 to October 2024, the selected artists or collectives will participate in internal meetings, artistic residencies and open moments in Portugal, Spain, Greece and online. They will develop artistic methodologies and implement them in each context and then meet in Portugal for the final replication of the created works. The three partner centres will actively participate in accompanying each process to relate to context.

Is this you?

We are looking for individual artists or collectives (represented by a maximum of 2 people), from or based in Portugal, Greece and Spain:

  • From different backgrounds or fields, who work within performative practices;
  • Who have carried out previous works related to contextual art practices; 
  • Who are available to participate in all scheduled activities, between October 2023 and October 2024 (please check the confirmed calendar of activities below);
  • Who are committed to opening and adapting a methodology to diverse places and contexts, fostering connections within the specific context of each partner, made possible through informal meetings, walks, creative laboratories, etc.;
  • Who are interested in reflecting on their own artistic practices and, at the same time, in tuning the debate into broader-scale issues;
  • Who are interested in questioning the currently established modes of cultural production towards more sustainable and ethical practices;
  • Who are available and interested in methodologies that work within long-term research and practices, developing their project during the different phases of the residency
  • Who are interested in the decentralisation of the artistic routes, further from the so-called “cultural axes” in Europe. 

Articulating inclusion and diversity issues, we encourage applications from underrepresented communities. 

For the full Terms and Conditions of the PLANT Open Call, please read the document below.

English - Portuguese - Spanish - Greek