OPEN CALL — IN EX(ILE) LAB
for artists in exile
in dialogue

deadline: March 3, 2023

Read this document in the following languages: English; Português; Italiano; Français, Farsi (فارسی) , русский, Arabic (عربی), español

We are looking for artists in exile* who want to develop a performance.

If you are an artist in exile*, currently based in Cyprus, France, Italy or Portugal and you have (or would like to develop) an artistic practice that relates to performance we want to hear from you.

To apply for IN EX(ILE) LAB please read this document and submit your project through this online form, by no later than March 3rd (11.00 PM, CET), 2023.

*artists living in a foreign country who cannot return to their home country due to war, racial, ethnic, sexual and gender discrimination, or religious, economic and political marginalisation.

If at any point you have any questions, or you need support to apply to this open call, feel free to reach out to:
– Alden Jacobs (contact@visual-voices.org) – Cyprus
– agency of artists in exile (projet@aa-e.org) – France
– Chiara Fabene (creativeeurope@santarcangelofestival.com) – Italy
– Ionara Silva (ionara@alkantara.pt) – Portugal

WHAT IS IN EX(ILE) LAB?
IN EX(ILE) LAB is a project that will support artists in exile,who have recently relocated and are looking to build a career in their host country, by providing opportunities to create a performance, build a professional network, be artistically advised by established artists based in Europe and reach new audiences within the European space.

By doing so, IN EX(ILE) LAB will provide a framework for cultural organisations to rethink their practices and adapt their tools to the needs of artists in exile.
IN EX(ILE) LAB is a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, led by the agency of artists in exile developed and implemented with Alkantara, Visual Voices and Santarcangelo Festival.

WE’RE LOOKING FOR ARTISTS IN EXILE WHO WANT TO DEVELOP A PERFORMANCE
We are currently looking for artists in exile who want to develop their artistic practices in dialogue with:
– our cultural organisations – sharing needs (for the development of their works) and concerns (social and political) we should be addressing as institutions
– other artists in exile (selected through this open call) – who will also be developing their performances in context this project
– well established artists – who will be mentors in the context of this project
– audiences – by sharing artistic practices / performances

WHO CAN APPLY? (Eligibility criteria)
– Artists who have been living in exile* in one of the participating countries (Cyprus, France, Italy or Portugal) for maximum of 10 years (starting from when they first entered national territory)
– Artists who develop/create their own works
– Artists who have presented professionally a minimum of 2 projects before, in their home country, and/or in their current host country and/or elsewhere
– Artists who are willing to develop a performance (for example: a live installation; a public space intervention; a performative take over of a space; a choreographic work, a theatre work, music work, etc) in the context of this project
– Artists who are available to participate in all scheduled activities, between May 2023 and July 2024 (please check the confirmed calendar of activities below)

*artists living in a foreign country who cannot return to their home country due to war, racial, ethnic, sexual and gender discrimination, or religious, economic and political marginalisation. Note that being in exile is not necessarily being an asylum seeker or a refugee, it is not a legal statute.

WHAT WILL SELECTED ARTISTS HAVE ACCESS TO IN THE CONTEXT OF IN EX(ILE) LAB?
Artists in exile, selected through this open call, will be proposed one of two paths:

PATH 1 — you will be travelling in the European Union — includes:
– a production stipend for the development of a performance — 4.000€/project, to a total 4 artists/projects
– cross-country artistic residencies for the development of a performance — 1 residency in the country where the artist is based and 1 residency in one of the participating countries — each residency will last 2 weeks and will include: accommodation, a dance/theatre or production studio, travel costs, per diems and an artist fee
– a yearlong mentorship programme with a well established artist in the field of performance
– an intensive masterclass programme in Paris, with the artists: Ana Pi, Jeanno Gaussi, Kamilya Jubran, Muna Mussie, Nadia Beugré, Ntando Cele and Rachid Ouramdane — including accommodation, travel costs and per diems
– training sessions (workshops and webinars) for professional development – including accommodation, travel costs and per diems (when the activities take place in a city different to that where the artist is based)
– public work in progress presentations of the performance in creation
– professional meetings to introduce programmers and other cultural workers to the performances in creation
– the promotion of the performance through communication campaigns (press, website portfolio, social media and mailing)

PATH 2 — you won’t need to travel abroad to participate in this path, artists will take part in the project in the country they are currently living in — includes:
– a production stipend for the development of performances — 4.000€/project, to a total 8 artists/projects
– a yearlong mentorship programme with a well established artist in the field of performance
– training sessions (workshops and webinars) for professional development – including accommodation, travel costs and per diems (when the activities take place in a city different to that where the artist is based)
– public work in progress presentations of the performance in creation
– professional meetings to introduce programmers and other cultural workers to the performances in creation
– the promotion of the performance through communication campaigns (press, website portfolio, social media and mailing)

*PLEASE NOTE that the following compulsory activities, for artists in both paths, will be scheduled soon:
– an online introductory meeting (early May 2023)
– mentorship programme – scheduled according to the calendar of the selected artist and mentors (from June 2023 to June 2024).
– workshops and seminars (June 2023 and April 2024)

WHO ARE WE?

4 cultural organisations, designing and implementing IN EX(ILE) LAB, plus 5 associated and 4 individual experts, who provide their feedback on the project design and implementation.

4 main partners

The agency of artists in exile (aa-e) (France) is a Paris-based organisation with an outreach office in Marseille dedicated to identifying and providing support to artists in exile of all origins and all disciplines. The aa-e provides work spaces and counseling to over 300 members based on the artists’ social and artistic needs, and connects them to French and European professional networks. The agency works with a wide array of tools and activities in collaboration with culture professionals, lawyers, health professionals and social workers : individual follow-up meetings, language courses, training, workshops, master classes, residency programs, etc. Additionally, the aa-e produces a yearly multidisciplinary festival called Visions of Exile to showcase the works of its members and raise awareness of the general public on the topic of exile.

Alkantara (Portugal) is a Lisbon-based performing arts organisation dedicated to supporting artists and audiences in engaging with critical ideas in arts and society. Its annual festival — Alkantara Festival — brings people together for dance, theatre, live performance, parties, and conversations around the work of artists from Portugal and abroad. Like its predecessor Danças na Cidade (1993-2004), the festival coproduces and presents Portuguese and international artists of different generations and is an important meeting place for arts professionals. Year-round, Espaço Alkantara is a place for residencies and research, meetings, workshops, and other public programmes.

Visual Voices (Cyprus) is a Nicosia-based non-profit organisation, working in the field of visual arts and community peacebuilding. More specifically, Visual Voices programs are designed for young visual artists interested in developing or continuing with socially engaged artistic practices. Their methodology is built around three key pillars: artist in residence programs, non-commercial platforms of expression, and community partnerships. Together these elements create space for dialogue and new perspectives around pressing social challenges.

Santarcangelo Festival (Italy) is an Italian platform for international and groundbreaking performing arts, an artistic residency for contemporary theatre and dance. Running since 1971, the Festival has become an important cultural hub and a leader in the international art scene. Together with a radical programme, it transforms the town of Santarcangelo in Northern Italy for 10 days, creating an unique and immersive atmosphere and building a temporary community of artists, citizens and spectators who gather around contemporary creation. The Festival activities unfold continuously throughout the year, organising gatherings and events aimed at nurturing the local community through sustainable, global, accessible and post-disciplinary practices.

5 associated experts

Abantu social cooperative (Italy) promotes inclusion and cohesion in the region of Bologna. Founded in 2013, the Abantu cooperative focuses on developing support activities for migrants such as consultancies services on immigration law, job coaching and linguistic-cultural mediation.

Acesso Cultura (Portugal) is a not-for-profit organisation which aims at promoting access (physical, social, intellectual) to cultural participation. One of Acesso Cultura’s main objectives is to contribute to the technical preparation of culture professionals in what concerns access to culture.

The Cyprus Refugee Council (Cyprus) is a non-for-profit organisation, that strives to safeguard, support and advocate for the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, detainees, trafficking victims and survivors of torture, in Cyprus.

La Briqueterie (France) is the National Choreographic Development Centre of Val-de Marne, a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to promote choreographic creation and artistic development through co-productions, studio space, artist residencies and transnational programs.

Théâtre National de Chaillot (France) is the first and only national theatre in France devoted to choreographic art. Chairman and Artistic director Rachid Ouramdane intends Chaillot to be a Theatre of Diversity, a place for social innovation through arts and culture mindful of environmental issues.

4 individual experts

Eva Neklyaeva is a curator based in Milan. Eva is concerned with the questions of freedom and focuses her practice on exploring these questions across performing art, politics and sexuality. At the moment, she is co-curating Samara Editions and serves as artistic advisor for SPIELART Theaterfestival in Munich.

Maral Bolouri are a Tehran-born, Paris-based multidisciplinary artist. As a gender non-conforming person, their work previously reflected their experience as a marginalized subject in post-revolution Iran. They currently explore gender, identity, and the influences of identity politics on artistic practice.

Khaled Alwarea is a Syrian architect and multidisciplinary artist based in Marseille. Through the alias KhAl, his creative practice focuses on visual art via photography, video art, theatre scenography, performance, and multimedia installations. He is the co-founder and creative director of UV LAB design studio.

Khaled Barakeh is a Syrian-born Berlin-based conceptual artist, cultural activist, and creative facilitator. He is also founder of coculture, a nonprofit organisation rooted in the intersectionality between art, activism, and community-building to support exiled culture and cultural producers.

WHO ARE THE MENTORS?

Ana Pi is a choreographic and imagery artist, researcher of Afro-diasporic and urban dances, extemporary dancer and pedagogue, her practices are woven through the act of traveling. Her work is situated among the notions of transit, displacement, belonging, superposition, memory, colors and ordinary gestures.

Jeanno Gaussi – Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, growing up in Kabul, Delhi, and Berlin. Her work engages with mechanisms of remembrance, the search for identity, and the social and cultural processes associated with them.

Kamilya Jubran searches an original musical expression of her voice and her instrument the Oud and explores new spaces and horizons for her notes and words through the various projects she realizes.

Muna Mussie (Eritrea 1978) lives and works in Bologna. Gesture, vision and word are her elements. Her work investigates stage and performing arts languages in order to shape the tension resulting from dif-ferent expressive poles: private and public, memory and oblivion, visible and invisible.

Nadia Beugré, is a dancer, choreographer and artistic director of the Libr’Arts company, born in Ivory Coast and based in Montpellier. Blurring borders and expectations, her work, often very physical, relentlessly questions identities, assignations and margins. Her work, as physical as it is committed, has never ceased to question questions of margins, belonging and assignment, always with the question of the body at the centre.

Ntando Cele is a director and theatre-maker from South Africa, living in Bern. As an ever-evolving artist, she collaborates on diverse projects to impact cultural practice on multiple levels and promote inclusivity.

OTHER FAQS

1 – What kind of proof do I need to provide to certify I am in exile?
You will not be asked for any document proving your administrative situation.

2 – What does it mean to be in exile?
If you are currently living outside of your native country and cannot return there due to war, racial, ethnic, sexual and gender discrimination, or religious, economic and political marginalization.

3 – Can I apply even if I can’t travel in Europe?
Yes. You are eligible for the support and activities in PATH 2, that do not require you traveling to other countries to take part in this project.

4 – Do I need to participate in all activities?
Yes. If you are selected you will be invited to participate in all activities of the proposed path. Please check the confirmed calendar of activities.

5 – Can I write my application in my native language?
Yes. But we strongly encourage you to use English. If you are currently based in France you can also apply in French; if you are currently based in Italy you can also apply in Italian; and if you are currently based in Portugal you can also apply in Portuguese.

6 – In what languages will the activities happen?
Activities with all participants of the project and international networking activities will take place in English. There’s flexibility to accommodate other languages according to all participants’ needs.

7 – Do I need to have an idea for a performance to apply?
Yes. We want to support your artistic practice. We’ll be evaluating your application based on your previous works and on the idea for a performance to be developed in the context of IN EX(ILE) LAB.

8 – Do I have to address migration and exile in the content of my work in order to be considered?
No. Your work (past and upcoming) doesn’t need to be about migration or exile.

9 – Will I have the chance to present my performance in the framework of IN EX(ILE) LAB?
Only if it’s feasible in the context of the residencies. At the end of each residency you’ll be asked to share your project with audience members — that sharing moment can be the presentation of the performance itself but can also be a try out of parts of it or a talk showing elements of the research.

10 – Will I have to present my performance in the frame of IN EX(ILE) LAB?
You will be encouraged to share your performance-in-creation with audience members but it is not mandatory that you present the full work. This can be decided in dialogue with the artistic team of the cultural organisation hosting you.

11 – Can I apply with an existing project/performance?
Yes, but only if you want to further develop that work.

12 – Can I apply with more than one project/performance?
Yes, but you can only apply with 2 different projects/performances, in 2 different application forms.

13 – Can I apply with a collective?
No. You have to apply with a solo creation, a work that you want to develop on your own and that can be activated by yourself alone or by yourself and a group of local participants (other artists, performers, technicians, etc).

14 – Can I invite other people as artists/performers for the performance I want to develop in the frame of IN EX(ILE) LAB?
Yes, but only local participants – people you invite in each place you will be developing the work in and who don’t need to travel for artistic residencies abroad. We can only support travel, accommodation, per diems and artist fee to one artist/creator.

15 – Who will be selecting the applications?
The projects will be selected by artistic direction of the 4 main partners of IN EX(ILE) LAB.

16 – What will be evaluated in the applications? What’s the selection criteria?
Eligible applications will be evaluated based on: the consistency of the artistic background of the applicant (artistic path and previous works); the feasibility of the performance the artist wants to develop; the capacity of IN EX(ILE) LAB to provide support in line with the applicant’s expectations and needs.

17 – I’m an experienced artist. Will my application be considered?
Yes. Both experienced and less experienced artists will be considered for this project.

18 – Is there an age restriction to apply to IN EX(ILE) LAB?
No.

19 – I am an artist with a disability. Will my application be considered?
Yes, we kindly ask you to inform us if you need any specific assistance, on section 12 of the application form, so we can assess our real capacity to do so.

20 – Will any of my personal information and identity be disclosed during the project?
No. We’ll follow the General Data Protection Regulation. If you are selected, we will only disclose your identity – name, picture and other information – if you agree to it. We’ll always ask for your permission.

21 – How many artists will be selected?
12 artists in total; 3 in each country (Cyprus, France, Italy and Portugal).

22 – When will I know the result?
The results will be announced by email by March 27 the latest. Every applicant will be informed of the result.

23 – Will all selected artists be entitled to financial support to develop their work?
Yes. 1 artist per country will be invited to participate in PATH 1 that includes both a production stipend of 4.000€ + a cross-country artistic residency (including accommodation, a dance/theatre or production studio, travel costs, per diems and an artist fee). 2 artists per country will be invited to participate in PATH 2 that includes a production stipend of 4.000€.

24 – What should I do if my availability changes during the selection process?
We appreciate it if you communicate the change of your availability during the selection process so we can consider artists who are available.

25 – How will the mentors support the artists throughout the project?
You will be asked to meet your mentor — in person and/or online — during the course of the programme (minimum 18 hours total). Your mentor will provide artistic coaching and feedback (an outside eye during the creation process), and support you with networking, cultural connections, and career development. The mentorship programme is intended to create safe, confidential and inspiring spaces where both participating artists and mentors can be in dialogue, learn and exchange.

26 – How will the artists selected through this open call be paired with the mentors?
The selected artists will be paired with the mentors during the project. Artists and mentors will be paired according to artistic affinities and interests, manifested both in the application and in an online meeting where the 12 participating artists will meet the 6 mentors. The pairing will have in mind the mentor and the artist/creator preferences.

27 – How will my needs and concerns as an artist in exile be addressed in your organisations?
During the project we will try to provide you suitable support, according to your needs. We will be discussing how to better be in dialogue with artists so we are more careful with the way we engage with artists and their needs. We will also develop a toolkit for our institutions, and for other like minded institutions, advocating for the implementation of good practices and actions for a more considerate cultural sector.

28 – What will I be asked in the form? You will be asked to answer to the following questions:
1 – Briefly present yourself and your artistic path. (Max 2500 characters)
2 – Briefly present 2 previous works and highlight how these works related to performance art if they did. (Max 5000 characters)
3 – Briefly describe the work you would like to develop in the frame of IN EX(ILE) LAB. (Max 2500 characters)
4 – What are your expectations and needs to develop this project? (Max 2500 characters)
5 – Are you eligible for international travel? If you are unsure about this, please share some information about your situation.
6 – What are the pronouns we should use to refer to you? (He/She/They)
7 – When did you first enter the national territory of the country you’re based in?
8 – Where are you currently based? Please let us know which city you are living in.
9 – Do you confirm your availability for these periods? (list of periods according to the calendar above)
10 – Which languages do you speak?
11 – Please upload documents for:
– the presentation of the works you presented to the public with links
– 1 file of your choice (video presentation, portfolio, etc…)
12 – Please use this section if you want to add something about your personal or professional situation in the country where you are currently living, that we would need to take into account in order for you to participate .

If at any point you have any questions, or you need support to apply to this open call, feel free to reach out to:
– Alden Jacobs (contact@visual-voices.org) – Cyprus
– atelier des artistes en exil (projet@aa-e.org) – France
– Chiara Fabene (creativeeurope@santarcangelofestival.com) – Italy
– Ionara Silva (ionara@alkantara.pt) – Portugal