Mediterranea16 Young Artists Biennial Open Call

Bjcem and the City of Ancona announce the launch of Mediterranea16 Young Artists Biennial, an international multidisciplinary event, taking place in Ancona, Italy, from June 6^th to July 7^th 2013, bringing together more the 250 artists.

Started in 1985, the Biennial takes place every two years in a different city in the Mediterranean area focusing on young artists and creators. Bjcem is an international network with more than 70 members and partners from Europe, Middle East and Africa which, thanks to their support, make the event possible ensuring the participation of artists from the territories they represent.

The call is open to visual artists, filmmakers, writers, performers, musicians, designers and cultural researchers under the age of 35 (born after December 31^st 1977). Artists have to present one specific proposal related to the concept. There are no submission fees and the opportunity is open to everyone regardless of gender, religion, social and political behaviours. Artists that have participated in more than one previous edition can’t apply, priority will be given to artists that have never attended the event.

NEW DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION: FEBRUARY, 17^th 2013.

Artists will be selected by the curatorial team composed by: Charlotte Bank, Alessandro Castiglioni, Nadira Laggoune, Delphine Leccas, Slobodne Veze/Loose Associations, Marco Trulli and Claudio Zecchi. They will co-operate as a collective for the selection of the artists and the design of the event.
The curators will select the participants on the basis of the presented materials. Their decision is final and not subject to appeal. The results will be documented in a report, presenting the reasons for the choice of artists. Quality of work and how well your proposal meets the concept will be basic selection criteria.
If your work is selected you will be invited to attend the event and present your work. The organisation will provide shipment of the work, insurance, installation, production of site specific projects, travel, board and lodging and support for visa requests.
No fees will be provided for the artists participating in the Biennial.

How to participate

Please submit using the online application (the application form has to be filled in in english): https://adobeformscentral.com/?f=%2AeKzq1PCOSZAiJKmzer4kg
The submission of an application automatically implies the complete acceptance of the present regulations.
The present announcement shall be governed by the law of the country in which you send your application.
N.B. Artists coming from Austria, France, Italy and Spain are strongly recommended to read the FAQs below.
N.B. Currently the call is not open on Portuguese territory.

Concept

The title is: ERRORS ALLOWED, which focuses on regimes of knowledge and self generated education strategies in the arts and their reflection on the broader society.
We invite artists to participate in this international open call, in order to offer their views on the concept with the aim of bringing a number of different contributions to rethinking society as a place where Utopian ideas still reside, as well as investigating the idea of education that goes beyond its current status of simply offering tools and services  to increase one’s personal competitiveness on the labour market.

We encourage risk taking, freedom of thinking, imagining and acting, and the re-conceptualization of the present, developing critical potential and questioning hegemonic systems.
In the last two years many countries from the Mediterranean area has seen massive economic, political and social changes. How have these changes influenced the production of art? Considering the general instability and the continuing fluctuations we decided to explore this and the potential of the social, cultural and political transition and to exhibit artists who are working on experimental forms, questioning the role of art in the society.

This new socio-economic situation has led to new forms of artistic production: artists have to a large degree changed their way of working, from individual to collective practices, with a growing interest in anonymous works and actions and a renewed focus on the idea of the public space as  a ground for narrative  practices. This has been paralleled by an increasing necessity to re-claim urban spaces  for citizenship’s practices, experimenting new forms of understanding  in the society.

More over, in this multidimensional crisis context, the simple act of meeting, discussing and sharing ideas implies the possibility of expanding the spectrum of our own views, skills and awareness. It is not just a purely practical opportunity but a necessity in terms of planning self strategies of evolution.
Finally, it means to take possession of a common narration (method) and, therefore, of a community (principle) which can propel the process of sharing. Implementing narrations and stories growing for cellular proliferation, without boundaries. This  process follows a circular path and it is set in a collective space, where free and independent practices of learning and artistic production occur.
These “Informal strategies“ are employed in many regions of the world not out of choice but  a necessity born out of limitations due to factors such as class, ethnicity or the degree of social connectedness. With access to official education severely limited, self-education – undertaken individually by seeking alternative means of learning or through a process of sharing and exchange – represents a powerful form of resistance. In this way, self-education becomes an active and dynamic reaction to the attempt to impose set patterns of knowledge, typical of systems run by state authoritarianism and censorship.

This Biennial also deals with resistance, in every possible form, to the regimes of knowledge. That’s why we are looking for artists who pursue, challenge and push the limits of their work, investigating: possible realities, structures and systems of communication, dynamics of information, methodologies of educations and the practices of sharing.