Nomadic Project

The Union is a newly created Oslo-based organization (2020), an artist-run mediation platform consisting of Slovakian Martinka Bobrikova, Peruvian-Palestinian Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez, and Spanish Oscar de Carmen. One of the core missions of The Union is to explore new socio-political realities through digital and physical activism and creative-citizen movements: the impact of Covid-19 – for artists, activists, thinkers, and creative minds – and its aftermath, being one of the most urgent ones. The Union´s laid-back projects target power structures in institutions, triggering loosen-up critical reflections through the use of unconventional, domestic, and experiential practices. We work to create other valorization structures for art, life, and culture, and to reshape the publics’ interaction; to actively participate in the collective design of new forms of care, participation, and empowerment through the arts. Whilst we cultivate countercultures and creative-civil community engagement.

  [Athens GR based pop-up curatorial team, former CDS projects]   Unfuck Contemporary art Projects   applied purism a guerrilla squad assembled & expanding to do just that. for us it’s personal, its [1love], there will be blood. rehumanize into the new collective

Created in Barcelona, RICE is a Reversing Initiative to Counter the Exclusion of females and other discriminated groups in the art world. As an independent curatorial platform, our mission is to bring visibility and promote the sale of fresh and unique artworks by emerging and mid-career artists from around the world. Yes, we favor female-identifying artists and artists pertaining to other discriminated groups but we do not exclude male artists, especially those living in situations of marginalization or discrimination. Our goal is to reverse the current state of favoritism towards the traditionally privileged in mainstream contemporary art, by exercising positive discrimination while still leaving room for male artists and curators to be a part of this initiative. To that end, we launch quarterly open calls to discover artist to be featured in our art magazine and in the exhibitions we organize at established galleries across Europe.

  Perennial Art is a group of contemporary artists that curate exhibitions within temporary spaces. Our aim is to introduce selected artists to a new public. By inviting emerging and established international contemporaries, our aim is to show the public to a diverse and interesting group of artists. Perennial hopes this idea will flourish and lead to further more exciting exhibitions in the future. After the first exhibition each artist featured in the show will then transport /transplant our work to their country of residence, acting as the secondary stem/off roots. By having the second exhibition in their city the new roots are planted allowing room to blossom on foreign soil.

Oika is a small but growing community of artists, storytellers and media-makers dedicated to manifesting ecological intelligence through our work. We are creating a new culture in alliance and alignment with nature. Oika elevates the value of art by aligning it with the power and abundance of nature. Our artists are in deep communion with nature and manifest ecological intelligence in their creations. This alliance between nature and artist affords a moral, ecological imperative. “Oikadelic” art brings ecological intelligence to culture through nature and ecological healing to nature through culture. Into the Artmosphere is Oika’s core educational program for artists, storytellers and media-makers. Throughout 2020 Dr. Rich Blundell is traveling to diverse artistic communities introducing the principles and practices of ecological intelligence. We teach artists how to practice Oika for creative inspiration and give them the language, concepts, and confidence to publicly communicate the eco-cultural value of their work Oika seeks to surface and capacity-build ecologically intelligent artistic communities. Into the Artmosphere presents a progressive on-ramp for artists and curators to get involved. Responding appropriately to the climate crisis requires a whole new category of media-maker. In addition to specialized technical skills, we need new creative professionals with a fine-tuned […]

  Love’s Remedies is an initiative by artists BRD (Bridget Rosalia Driessen) and Hannah Kim Varamini. Started in 2018, Love’s Remedies uses the artists’ collective interest in care and attention as media, and invites other artists to utilize them and their resources for their own benefit. For their inhabitance at ArtCenter DTLA through 2020, Love’s Remedies continues to investigate the relations between friendship and artist networks, professional practices and expansive action.

During Soviet times, arts and culture were promoted, financed and used by the state and the communist party as an instrument to underpin the state, their party values and ideology. Cultural content had to align with ideological propaganda and be broadly understood by the general public. It also had to instill into people a feeling of being a part of the USSR family alongside its objectives and achievements. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the concomitant economic dip and scarcity of state resources in the newly independent Kyrgyz Republic, the arts and culture community and Kyrgyz Union of Artists not only lost its financing but more importantly its role in society and the state. Twenty years after independence, like other newly independent states, the multi-ethnic Kyrgyz Republic is still struggling with a new national identity appealing to all constituent parts of the country. There is also a lack of understanding of citizen responsibility in a pluralistic market economy. Б’Art Contemporary was founded in 2007 by Shaarbek Amankul as an artistic research project and mobile art practice aimed at developing and promoting contemporary art in Kyrgyzstan as an alternative to the traditional view of and approach to art. VISION: […]

the rabbit hole seeks to stimulate new ideas about the self and the other, and to challenge culturally constructed limits and borders. to support this goal, a traveling residency program was established in 2012, aimed at the deconstruction of myth, storytelling and the essential notion of pilgrimages. artists from any discipline can apply to participate as one of the 5 selected wandering wonderers. together they embark on a pilgrimage traversing 7 locations – across lands ands seas – for a total of 21 days. applications are adjudicated by our academic advisory board. the residency is specifically designed to create a means for artists to explore the magical realism of archetypal journeys, while relying on wit and the power of improvisation to reconstruct new narratives.

  The Concern Newsstand has such a name because of a concern that the world is falling to distracted mindlessness and that we’re all reading from physical, paper objects less and less. A ‘concern’ is also the name of a ‘business’. The Chapel Hill / Carrboro, NC area no longer has m/any used book or magazine stores. The Newsstand is offering this service to the community. It is also a venue for local artists & artists from beyond to sell their printed materials & limited edition products. Housed in a gallery & among artist studios, it is a meeting spot & hang out place. The curated focus is to expand one’s mind in some way beyond the mundane via artist books, comics, art books, magazines, small press publishers, used books, vintage magazines & more. The curator & artist behind this project is Orvokki Crosby. The Concern has a long-term outpost at Lump Gallery (505 S. Blount Street, Raleigh, NC 27601) where materials can be browsed and purchases can be made during gallery hours (Thu- Sat, 12-6pm) AND a showroom/ reading room/ workshop at Attic 506 (506A W. Franklin Street), in Chapel Hill, open during events (second Fridays 6-9pm) & by […]

Flat Octopus is an international artist- and curator-run collective in Stockholm, Sweden. Flat Octopus organizes exhibitions and workshops in apartments in Stockholm and Uppsala, as well as external projects, events and collaborations locally and internationally. The Name The title, Flat Octopus, points to the main concept of apartment (flat) exhibitions and the flat hierarchy structure of the collective. The octopus is a playful twist, as ‘octopus’ commonly refers to large scale business corporations, an opposite to the nature of the collective. The Concept Flat Octopus works with apartment exhibitions. For each exhibition the members of Flat Octopus invite an artist or curator to take over one of their members’ or guest apartments where he/she stays for a period and produces an exhibition. Aside from this the collective organizes workshops and external projects and collaborations locally and internationally.  

  Videokaffe explores the intersection of handcraft and modern technology through exhibitions, art residencies and connecting artist studios worldwide. Since 2011 Videokaffe has exhibited at galleries and art residencies in Japan, Russia, United States and Finland. The members show their individual works and together build workspaces / labs onsite, where they work collaboratively and create artwork. During the exhibitions, Videokaffe invites the audience to enter the workspace to witness, learn about, and participate in the art making process. Between exhibitions, Videokaffe members meet regularly online by connecting their studios via webcams and video projectors. Through this process, the members work together as if they are sharing the same space. Videokaffe seeks to build bridges among cultures and to collaborate through the universal language of art.  

  Soundstripes is an eclectic screening of short silent films, all live scored by a band of improvising musicians. Soundstripes is a co-organised by Jonny Best, Alice Bradshaw & Vanessa Haley and was established in Huddersfield in 2017.  

  The East Leeds Project is a curatorial platform and operates nomadically at present within a five-mile green corridor running north to south through the eastern part of the city of Leeds, UK. This follows the route of the Wyke Beck Valley and is bookended by formal and historic parks at Roundhay and Temple Newsam. The project is research-led and seeks to locate an intersection between the overlapping concerns of contemporary visual art (as social practice); blue-green infrastructure in the city; and issues of sustainability – both human and environmental. We are actively seeking partnerships with artists and organisations interested in these practices globally. Team: Kerry Harker (Founder and Director), Claire Irving (Communities Director), Paul Harker (Communications Director)

The independent and non-commercial project initiative stay hungry was founded in 2014 in Berlin by the artists Michel Aniol and Meike Kuhnert. stay hungry was founded to provide national and international artists and creative artists a non-hierarchical, independent platform for exchange and experimentation outside of commercial structures and supports alternative and self-organized forms of presentation. Since 2016 stay hungry expanded the exhibition program by a new conceptual element and established Mobile Menu, an interventional food series, that has become an integral part of all ongoing projects. Mobile Menu aims to create various dinners interrelated to the concept and topic of the current exhibition and is served at the finissage.

  ada is… ein Projekt zur künstlerischen Zwischennutzung, welches ausgehend von den lokalen Gegebenheiten versucht KünstlerInnen zur Auseinandersetzung dieser conditio humana einzuladen, um dahingehend auch die eigene Rolle in der Gesellschaft zu hinterfragen. „Die einzige Konstante – ist die Transformation“ Dazu werden dort regelmäßige Präsentationen von unterschiedlichen Positionen der Gegenwartskunst stattfinden. Der Fokus ist eine breit gefächerte Präsentation (Malerei, Bildhauerei, Performance, Medienkunst etc.) von Kunst im Wechselspiel mit der Örtlichkeit. Ziel ist die Schaffung einer sich prozesshaft transformierenden Ausstellung, mit jeweils in situ entstehender Kunst, die in Symbiose mit dem Raum geschieht. Ein Umgang mit der Umgebung, eine Herausforderung an das Schaffen selbst – Ephemera und das du. Die Ausstellungsreihe zum Thema der Verwandlung und Vergänglichkeit der Identität repräsentiert in den Resten der menschlichen Existenz, ist die Vorgabe der Wandlung, nicht um das alte wieder lebendig zu machen sondern die Kunst als Sonde in die vielfältigen Ebenen der Humankondition zu nützen. Die Künstler sind konfrontiert mit der Geschichte des Raumes, dieser bedingt den darin stattfindenden künstlerischen Prozess; der Metamorphose vom Vergangenen zum Jetzt, hin zum zukünftig endgültigen Vergessen. Das Ausloten/Verbiegen der Räumlichkeiten, deren Geschichte, deren Umfeld, der künstlerischen Grenzen, stehen im Blickfeld. Transformierende Ausstellung: auf den vorgefundenen Resten aufbauend, lagern sich die […]

  GAP Is a membership based international collaborative of Mixed-media Artists whose active participants number 53 members working in 12 countries, depending on the project. Having roots initially in web based activity beginning in 2012 (post card and correspondence art projects such as KNEE(jerk) Fragmentation Project). GLOBAL ART PROJECT has generated numerous workshops, exhibitions and collaborative studio experiences in Venice, Lecce and Treviso Italy, Mazatlan, Mexico, Dakar, Senegal, Ghent, Belgium, The Netherlands, North Carolina, New York, Minneapolis, MN, San Francisco, Mill Valley, Benicia, Sausalito and Novato, California. Our work reflects individual, personal and global concerns by virtue of intention. We are creating and exhibiting work that allows freedom of expression given this unique format to communicate beyond language and culture with diverse artists from all over the world while remaining open to the opportunities of the moment accessed through this circumstance in settings allowing interaction not only with each other but local arts communities as well. We are linked by activity in mixed-media art practice, photography, video and performance arts which may be reduced to working with the materials at hand and has antecedents in collage, assemblage, found-object and related practice. Our affinity with Fluxus, Cobra, and the Dada Art Movement is a […]

VIDEOART CENTER Tokyo/VCT was founded in 2001 as an association dedicated to videoart and other time based arts in Japan. The aim of VCT is to form an international alternative network for those arts and develop the situation. VCT is managed independently as a Non-Profit Organization by videoartists and the staffs who consider it’s necessary to establish a critical role of the videoart of the present against the society of spectacle. As recent activities, VCT took part in “50th Anniversary of Video Art / Les Instant Video2013” (2013, Marseiile, France), and worked on a documentary video project with oral history of early video artists in Japan, “Kikai de Mirukoto=Eye Machine/To See by Chance -the Pioneers of Japanese Videoarts-“(2012, 82min.), series of screening event; “Video Reflexive” (2014-2016) included “Ko NAKAJIMA Video Vicissitudes”(2014, UPLINK, Tokyo). VCT focused on the open air video art show in urban spaces, as “Video Art Promenade in ASAGAYA/ Wall to Wall”(2015, Tokyo), “Video Art Promenade in Kagurazaka”(2015, Tokyo).  

BUREAU of CHANGE is an education-centric lab for real art practice in New Orleans. We create, curate and exhibit socially and politically engaged work. BUREAU of CHANGE was founded by Margot Herster with a group of her former students and recent graduates from Louisiana State University. Originating out of dissatisfaction with higher education, particularly in arts and media, BUREAU developed into a new school in the form of an atelier-style studio.  A diverse group—established artists and designers, paid student apprentices and young artists, scholars and community experts, and the public—interact to create. Our objectives are influenced by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project implemented during the Great Depression. We harken a a lost but not forgotten era when the government stimulated jobs in the arts by employing artists to create public works and subsidizing community education centers that offered training in arts skills applicable to industrial jobs of the time. Our process commissions artists and non-artists to collaborate on creative works aimed at inciting institutional change while studying social technology, digital media theory, interdisciplinary research and artistic production. BUREAU of CHANGE produces exhibitions, participatory and site-specific experiences, workshops and public programming, made-for-internet works, and collaborations with local and international […]

  AIM (Artists’ Initiatives’ Meetings) is an international artist-run network of artist-run initiatives. AIM was established in 2010 in order to create a common platform to share experiences and knowledge and to increase visibility of the artist-run art scene. AIM’s programme consists of meetings, conferences and exhibitions, and stimulates mobility and new collaborations for artists and professionals in the art field. We have identified the need for a common platform and begun building a world-wide network of artists’ initiatives. There is a great need to increase visibility and accessibility for the organisations themselves, for artists and professionals in the art field, and for a broader public. Previous conferences: Berlin in October 2010, Stockholm in February 2011, Copenhagen in September 2011, Binissalem in February 2012, Stockholm in February 2013, Helsinki in September 2013, Stockholm in February 2014, Athens in May 2014, Riga/Grobina in September 2014, Stockholm in April 2015, Wrocław in May 2016, Berlin in September 2017, Stockholm in April 2018, Plovdiv in May 2018. AIM Network received the long- and short-term network funding from the Nordic Culture Point in 2011–2016 and in 2018-20. A publication summarising the activities of the network was released in May 2017. Second publication is planned. […]