Urban Emptiness

Urban Emptiness invites proposals for a public art and performance festival, focusing on the creative potential of walking the city, taking place from December 1-10, 2017, in Nicosia, Cyprus. We welcome disciplinary diversity: walks, walking performances outdoors, and indoors related visual/ installation, time-based media, virtual work, online-IRL hybrids, and others. Creating and sharing walks Urban Emptiness Nicosia invites groups and individuals, to create and share walks that suggest innovative, experimental approaches to the city of Nicosia. Walks should encompass engaging ways of intervening public spaces and relate to Nicosia\’s social/cultural/geographical fabric. The project is particularly oriented to projects that challenge us to rethink our everyday relationship to the urban environment. We reach out with following key topics: ⦁ intimacies, sharing a walk ⦁ urban suspensions/interruptions, pauses in the urban fabric ⦁ playfulness, unexpected encounters, taking risks Personal or remote participation Artists can propose a participation on location, but are also encouraged to also contribute remotely in creating a collaborative “library of walks”, inviting to a walk, a movement performance with or without technological intermediation to become part of a growing library. The proposed walk or performance is meant to be performed remotely by others (performers, public, or mixed) in Nicosia. We expect to receive a \”manual\”\’, a brief or a detailed walking/-movement score (step by step instructions for one walker, two walkers, … a group/a crowd). Selected performative walks from the open call for the Library of Walks will be performed by volunteers (young performers / dancers / movement artists / and the public). Participants are as well the audience. The walking actions / movement performances are meant to be realized collaboratively to fully experience the works. In fact participants and public become part of it. All walks will be included in an open source digital library / database of walks, as part of the indoors exhibition, and available for the public to perform themselves, and as well as, after the event, as a growing and living archive of walks. Exhibition An indoor exhibition with selected art works, related to walks and walking performances, will take place at the venue of the Dance House Nicosia. The walks, walking performances, walkshops and workshops will happen parallel to the No Body Festival of DanceHouse Nicosia. The Urban Emptiness 2017 Nicosia organizers are: ⦁ Cultural Studies and Contemporary Arts (CSCA) Laboratory Nicosia, Cyprus ⦁ DANCE GATE LEFKOSIA CYPRUS, supported by DH Lefkosia, Cyprus/ framework of NO_ BODY Festival 2017 ⦁ Urban Emptiness Network ⦁ Arianna Economou, Co-coordinator ⦁ Sophia Hadjipapa-Gee, Curator ⦁ Geert Vermeire, Curator ⦁ Christos Kakalis, University of Newcastle / Urban Emptiness Network ⦁ Stella Mygdali, University of Edinburgh / Urban Emptiness Network The Urban Emptiness 2017 international partners are: Parsons – Fine Arts, New York. Institut supérieur des arts et des chorégraphies (ISAC) – Académie royale des beaux-arts de Bruxelles / École supérieure des arts (ARBA – ESA), Brussels National Technical University of Athens – School of Architecture (NTUA), Athens Analogio Festival, Athens Urban Emptiness offers participants: 1. Promotion through Urban Emptiness network of press and contacts. 2. Urban Emptiness web presence with project info, bios, and backlinks. 3. Listing in the Urban Emptiness program 4. Practice consultation. NOTE: Urban Emptiness is realized by the volunteer efforts of all involved. We can provide advice and suggestions but participants with an action of work on location are responsible for all aspects of production and realization. Urban Emptiness does not provide permits for participating artist projects and encourages works that do not need a permit. Selected proposals will be notified by September 16th, 2017 APPLICATION FORM: Download from here: http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/0ef721_3bca4f63f72745e4b925b02d50b9036b.docx?dn=Application%20Form.docx Questions? Email: