MagiC Carpets
Wrocław Institute of Culture joined the ‘MagiC Carpets’ platform, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme, bringing together 16 European partners, cultural organisations from EU and candidate countries, led by the Kaunas Biennale.
The name of the project was invented by Benedetta Carpi De Resmini – a reference to the fairy tale from ‘The Book of One Thousand and One Nights’ about a flying carpet – a fantastic tool for travelling the world. Sheherazade’s creativity and imagination is a metaphor for the power of culture to turn mistrust and antagonism into intercultural dialogue.
The main thrust of the platform is to develop activities that engage curators and artists through a residency programme for budding creative souls, involving local communities and focusing on work in public spaces. During the three-year MagiC Carpets project (2022-2025), the partner organisations will carry out more than 120 artist residencies, creating an extensive European network for emerging artists and curators. Participation in the project is also an opportunity to expand the competences of socially engaged, local artists women, who will collaborate with creators from other countries selected through the partnership. The diversity of the organisations involved in the platform provides an opportunity to learn about other unique cultures, but also about issues and challenges from across Europe and to initiate more transdisciplinary activities that reinforce the values of democracy, inclusion, social awareness and equality.
Open call for the artists’ network extended until February 15!
In 2022, we carried out the first recruitment for the MagiC Carpets artist database. Thanks to it, we have collected portfolios of artists living all over Poland. The artists selected by the curators of MagiC Carpets – Barbara Gryka and Filip Kijowski – could go on a month-long artistic residency at one of the 16 partner art institutions. In 2023, we are opening another open call for emerging artists, expanding the database, and we are waiting for applications until February 15. Creators who applied last year do not have to re-submit their portfolio.
Apply to network of artists as part of the Creative Europe platform – MagiC Carpets 2023-2025
- Who can apply?
- How to apply?
- What are the benefits for the artist?
- What skills should the artist have?
- How does the selection of residents proceed?
- Open call regulations
- MagiC Carpets partners
Open call is addressed to emerging artists (at early stage of their careers):
→ artists representing various fields of art (e.g. visual arts, theatre, literature and others)
→ living in Poland
→ who want to go for a residency by 31 January 2024 (detailed dates of the residency are established with the hosting institution)
→ who are interested in working with the local community, residents of large housing complexes (e.g. blocks of flats), ecology and sustainable art, critical approaches to tourism, palimpsests, working with children, geology, socially engaged art in public space, facilitation, photography, sound art, video art, documentary art.
HOW TO APPLY?
To apply to the MC artists database, submit in English:
→ a portfolio in .pdf format and a CV
→ answers to the questions: What would you like to learn through working with communities? Why is it important to work artistically with local communities? A statement of 1500-2000 characters with spaces.
The deadline for submissions is 15 February 2023. Send your application via e-mail to: airwro@instytutkultury.pl with the following title: NAME and SURNAME – MagiC Carpets.
What are the benefits for the artist?
Artists who would like to be included in the database used by the project curators, after an initial selection by a WIK curator, will have a chance to go for a month-long residency in one of the fifteen partner institutions of the MagiC Carpets project. However, it is the curators who make the final decision on inviting the artist.
The invited residents will work together with local communities and the aim is to unite them through the artistic project. The whole process will be facilitated by an emerging curator. In some cases will have the opportunity to present their project at events with the public, e.g. at a festival, an open meeting or an exhibition.
What skills should the artist have?
→ a will to work with local communities
→ have a strong motivation on learing new things and experimenting, trying their forces in artistic disciplines they know less
→ speaking English
How does the selection of residents proceed?
- The curator representing the Wrocław Institute of Culture (WIoC) selects a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 7 submitted applications.
- Then she sends them to curators of partner institutions who may be interested in cooperation. Artists’ submissions are matched to the themes of residency projects prepared by MagiC Carpets curators from various countries at the beginning of 2023. Curators’ profiles are available HERE.
- If the curator of a given institution wants to learn more about the artist, the curator of the WIoC organizes a joint online meeting. During the online meeting, the artists have a chance to present themselves and talk about possible cooperation.
- After the conversation, the curator has a few days to consider working with the artist.
- When the whole process is successful and the curator is interested in cooperation, the artist is invited to the residency, which takes place on a fixed date, no later than January 31, 2024.
- The date is proposed by the probation officer and the resident’s host institution.
MagiC Carpets partners
Kaunas Biennial (Lithuania) is leading a Creative Europe platform titled „Magic Carpets” which involves 16 wonderful cultural organisations from EU and candidate counries. Together with Diyalog Derneği (Istanbul / Turkey), Folkestone Fringe (Folkestone / UK), IDEIAS EMERGENTES – Produção Cultural, CRL (Porto (Guimarães) / Portugal), Jam Factory Art Centre (Lviv / Ukraine), Lab852 d.o.o. za promidžbu (Zagreb / Croatia), Latitudo Srl (Rome / Italy), META Cultural Foundation (Bucharest (Slon / Romania), New Theatre Institute of Latvia (Riga / Latvia), Novo Kulturno Naselje (Novi Sad / Serbia), OPENART, Örebro Kommun (Örebro / Sweden), Openspace.Innsbruck (Innsbruck / Austria), SA Tartu 2024 (Tartu / Estonia), Tbilisi International Photo Festival (Tbilisi / Georgia), Trempo (Nantes / France) and us, Wrocław Institute of Culture (Wrocław/ Poland), we will create the platform for emerging artists to start their magical journey, collect local stories and carry them across Europe.
Grafikwerkstatt: open call for a residency in Dresden!
We invite the Wrocław based artistic community specializing in graphic arts to submit applications as part of the open call for an artistic residency at one of the oldest and most important art printing studios in Europe – Grafikwerkstatt. A month-long stay in the Dresden studio is an opportunity to develop your individual skills, thanks to specialized equipment and work with the best artists from around the world.
Kine Michelle Bruniera and Lill Yildiz Yalcin are the first residents of “Whose voices are being heard?” project
As part of the spring-summer residency program, six artists from minority groups in Norway will travel to Wrocław to work in several fields of art (painting, sculpture, photography, music). The artists come from different socio-cultural contexts and have varied biographical experiences.
Agata Ciastoń and Jon Lundell curate an exchange project between artists from Poland and Norway
We have announced the names of 12 people who will participate in the residency programme “Whose voices are being heard?”. They are minority artists living in Poland and Norway. Who will accompany them in the creative process? It’s time to get to know the curators of the international residency exchange better!