SoftControl Competition – artist-in-residence

CALL FOR ENTRIES FOR THE PROJECT Spajalica>Copula SOFTCONTROL 2012-2015 http://www.softcontrol.info/ The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art announces a call for entries for temporary art projects in public space under the common title of SoftControl. Implementation time and duration of the project is 13-19 May 2013 in Rijeka, in the spatial proximity of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka, consisting of the following city streets: Dolac, Frana Kurelca, Erazma Barčića, Rudolfa Strohala, Hotel Bonavia stairs, Trg 139. brigade, all the way to the Mali salon gallery in Korzo 24 (Google map). Application deadline: The call for entries closes on 9 December 2012, participants will be notified by the end of January 2013 via the Museum website www.mmsu.hr. The selected participants will be contacted personally via e-mail. Applications will be discussed by the five-member jury: Tomislav Brajnović, artist; Urša Jurman, curator; Ivana Meštrov, curator; Ksenija Orelj, curator; Sabina Salamon, curator. Remarks for applicants: 1. The right to participate extends to individuals or collectives from the Republic of Croatia and other countries. 2. Both already existing and new works that can be displayed for the period of maximum 7 days are eligible for application. They are to be mailed to the following address: MMSU, Dolac 1/II, 51000 Rijeka, or by e-mail: with a subject header ‘SoftControl Competition’. Contact persons: Ivo Matulić, , +385(0)51492621; and Sabina Salamon, , +385(0)51492618. 3. Not more than two works can be submitted for the competition. 4. Applications without required documentation will not be considered by the jury and will be deemed incomplete. 5. Competition application form 6. Selected artists transport the works at their own expense. 7. Materials submitted alongside the application form (CD, DVD, photographs) are nor returned to the applicant. Please do not send originals. 8. Fee per project amounts to HRK 3,000.00 (gross), while the maximum amount for the production of individual projects amounts to HRK 7,000.00 (gross). 9. Travel expenses and accommodation in the duration of maximum three nights are covered by the organiser. Remarks for foreign artists: The call for entries envisages two residencies for foreign artists who wish to realise their projects in public space. Residences are available in the duration of maximum 20 days in two periods: 15 April to 5 May, and 5 may to 30 May. The application should be mailed to the following address: MMSU, Dolac 1/II, 51000 Rijeka, or by e-mail: with a subject header ‘SoftControl Competition – artist-in-residence’ (application attached). APPLICATION FORM for Spajalica>Copula should contain: 1. A filled application form 2. A description enabling the jury an insight into the submitted work through appropriate documentation (sketch, photo, video etc). 3. A technical description of the executed work with location and duration (how the work is mounted and dismounted and the list of technical equipment) 4. A bill of costs for project realisation (with the included author’s fee and insurance fee, if needed) Project description: Spajalica/Copula Starting from the often mentioned detachment of the museum zone, displacement from the public space as a consequence of involvement in programmatic tasks of collecting and safekeeping, this project raises the question of the manner of reactivating the public space and the artist’s presence in it. In the wake of the initiative for different regulation of social space and leisure time, this project is interested in contemporary art practices which disturb the status quo and underline concealed, transposed or neglected contents in urban environment, regardless of the approach or medium the artists use. This call for entries is open for proposals which will mark the Museum’s presence in its neighbourhood, abandoning traditional commemorative approaches and permanent sculptural solutions, transforming ‘passive’ narratives into physical and symbolic presence, by concentrating on current social issues and relations or connecting with everyday life practice on the borderline between public and private, facts and fiction. In the sense of media, the project supports performative and participatory works, urban interventions and outdoor installations whose audience – users or participants – cannot be predetermined. What is required: to explore approaches which use the public space to open and address the public which does not belong to the standard circuit of art events, but includes passers-by, neighbours, current visitors of streets and squares. By treating physical and symbolic distances between the artist / artwork and different ‘publics’, the possibility of instigating processes of social mutuality and connection is explored. Desirable works question walls between individuals and institutions, relying on the model of copula, in terms of connecting utopian or practical scenarios of art and urban tissue. Basic guidelines of the project are achieving the presence of modern art in the public space and Museum’s communication with its urban surroundings, especially within the narrow neighbourhood it exists in.