Event Venue
Am Sudhaus 5 12053
AFFECT is a Program for Collaborative Artistic Practices initiated by Agora Collective e.V. in Berlin, currently in its fourth edition.
A hybrid between an educational program and a research-based artist’s residency, the 2018 edition consists this year of a curriculum of 4 modules growing out of the research and practice of 4 Berlin-based international artists under the overarching theme: “Micro-Utopias: Cartographies of Relational Art in Berlin”.
Each module takes the form of an intensive week-long participatory workshop revolving around a central research question supported by a series of activities proposed by the leading facilitators.
Content wise the modules renew the question about the social function of art, offered as case studies to support residents contextualizing the program’s main question in Berlin, triggering autonomous research strands at AFFECT based on the insights gained through the exchange of practices during their stay.
Participants will have the opportunity to collectively delve into the proposed research question, bringing in their own sensibilities, practice and experience.
AFFECT 2018 is facilitated by Diego Agulló, Club Real (Georg Reinhardt, Marianne Ramsay-Sonneck), Zorka Wollny, Susanne Bosch, curated by Paz Ponce, and hosted by Agora Collective: Berlin-based Center for Contemporary Artistic Practices in Berlin.
Our full program and information on how to apply:
www.agoracollective.org/affect
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS & INFORMATION BROCHURE HERE
* Deadline for applications: 20th May 2018
AFFECT PROGRAM STRUCTURE:
** Application Deadline: May 20th | 15th April Early Bird registration
How much do you risk in the process of art making and researching? How much chaos can your practice deal with? How ready are you to de-territorialize your identities? Can art inject anomaly and challenge the social order?
Agullo’s intensive collective investigation suggests mixing with alterity to stimulate the emergence of something new, embracing disorder, chaos, confusion, confrontation and affection as transformative aspects of exchange. In this immersive workshop, exercises, dialectal discussions and concept diagrams will be employed to confront practical problems and enter the process of value finding in heterogeneity.
What possibilities did Berlin in the early 2000s offer to participatory art in public space? What happened to the spaces where such interventions took place? Where can we find inspiring cracks and voids in the body of the city today?
In a city that is becoming more and more dense and utilized, the Berlin-based artist collective Club Real aims to explore the above questions and some of the city’s projects in order to widen the perspective on the possibilities and limitations of participation in art and art interventions in public urban spaces, using the concept of “disturbances of every day life” and presentations as a form of intervention.
Under what conditions could smaller communities benefit from art, and artists benefit from contact with specific groups? How to do it with the full respect to the people and contexts within which one wants to work?
In an intensive week workshop testing ideas through the district of Neukölln, Zorka Wollny proves there is no escape from the context, putting forward ideas on collaboration from her experience in site-specific and socially involved projects. Discussing all the stages of the art production and using various exercises, the workshop will cover the conceptualization, organization and evaluation of contextual projects.
What makes a heterogeneous group of people ease into a situation to collaborate? Do you dream of really collaborating or of a participatory process within an art work? What does it mean to be the host of such a process? What does hosting include?
To answer these questions is to accept the complexity of the collaborative practices and their multiple layers, investigated by Susanne Bosch in her extensive research experience in participatory public art. In this module, concepts such as friendship, equality and otherness, relationships of power, leadership and negotiation, will be explored as essential tools for every cooperation and hosting. Through presentation, discussion, reflection and storytelling, we seek to find new models of togetherness and interdependence and revisit the idea of conviviality.
PARTICIPATION
No previous collaborative experience is required to participate in AFFECT, the unique combination of participatory workshops, studio visits, guided walks, public lectures, open reading groups and series of interventions planned for each module, serve international applicants as a practical research base & capacity network for the implementation of future projects in the city.
Participation fee is 450€ for each module. A small production budget will be provided for the final event. Our hybrid model between a research and formative type of residency, experimenting with models of art and education, opens up more possibilities to apply for financial support. Previous AFFECT participants have been successfully granted to attend our program by university career departments, academic research fellowships, cross European and overseas mobility funds for artists, etc. Get in touch with coordination and we will provide you a list of funding possibilities. Agora can provide individual acceptance letters with a description of the content and nature of the modules to support grant application processes. Letters can be issued to applicants upon request.
PROGRAM SUPPORT
Residents will be assisted by AFFECT Coordination team during their stay, via:
* WEEKLY EDITORIAL MEETINGS / COLLECTIVE EDITING STUDIO: Led by Paz Ponce, AFFECT Project Coordinator / Curator of Education at Agora, the sessions are arranged to support collective and individual research strands along the 8 residency weeks, monitoring and offering curatorial guidance to participants about their contributions to the final publication.
* DOCUMENTATION: A photographer/videographer with a background in visual anthropology will be engaged in the daily activities of the residency, supporting with tech resources related to research needs.
* AFFECT PUBLIC LAB: A new feature of the 2018 edition. An ongoing mediation lab assisting residents in the involvement of specific communities in Neukölln related to their research along their stay. AFFECT PUBLIC LAB transverses all modules with the aim of extending the discoursive program to local audiences. Directed by Paz Ponce in cooperation with Kulturnetzwerk Neukölln (communication partners for public outreach).
* ADMINISTRATION OF ACTIVITIES & EVENTS BUDGET: every module allocates a budget to cover production costs associated with the organization of public activities, as well as group visits and studio talks with other artists as part of the program of each module.
* RESIDENCY VENUE: AGORA offers seminar rooms for all indoor residency meetings (50% indoor / 50 % outdoor activities), and for the hosting of 4 public activities
CONTACT & APPLICATIONS
www.agoracollective.org/affect/apply
Acknowledgement
Illustration credits: “Diagram”, 2017. Yerin Kim. Past resident at AFFECT 2016
