ONASSIS AiR 2 3 Contents 4 Onassis AiR Overview 6 Onassis AiR - - PDF document

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ONASSIS AiR

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3 Contents

Onassis AiR Overview Onassis AiR Strands Program Principles DNA The Critical Practices Program Residency Program Exchange Residencies Emergency Fellowships Public Events Collaborations Space Team 4 6 8 11 15 27 32 39 43 47 53 56

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Onassis AiR - the (inter)national artistic research and residency program in Athens (Greece) has been established by the Onassis Foundation in 2018, under the auspices of the Onassis Culture pillar focused on process, encounters, the public space and its commons. Onassis AiR is a year-round program, located in the urban centre of Athens, that grounds its mission in commitment to supporting artistic process, towards a less product-

• bsessed arts ecosystem.

Onassis AiR supports: Greek and international artists, curators, and thinkers working in time-based * artistic disciplines, who wish to deepen, reconsider, or transform their practice or methodology, without expectations and constraints of the production frenzy.

Onassis AiR Overview

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Onassis AiR, the program and its space, creates an ever growing community of participants. A place where all the participants can interact with each other as peers. Regardless of age or how accomplished they are. To work and think and eat together as a community that does not strive for the next project, the next premiere, the next opening. A community of individual artists and thinkers working in time-based mediums, on individual and collective artistic research projects. A community and space that is very much local. A community that has the ability to pause, to rethink how each one of us functions and creates. A space that offers time. Time to learn, to change, or go deeper, by doing and undoing or non-doing. Onassis AiR principles: time-based, in-flux, local, (inter)national, DIWO (do-it-with-others), self- learning, no gurus, “the doer decides”.

* Time-based art is an artistic medium dealing with the complex multiplicity of artistic forms which use the passage

• f and the manipulation of time as the essential element within

creation of a contemporary work of art (be it performing arts, contemporary art, media or installation art, etc.). The term time-based art was first introduced by UK video art pioneer David Hall in 1972 through his writings in various publications including Studio International.

6 Onassis AiR Strands

Onassis AiR Critical Practices Program

is a full-time, 3-month encounter of 5 practitioners living and working in Greece. It is for those who are in-flux, who are going through rupture, for those practitioners who are experiencing a shift within their individual artistic or creative trajectory. The program is designed as a collective artistic research community of time- based professionals (visual artists, choreographers, theatre and film directors, composers, performers, curators, producers, designers, writers, cultural theorists, and other curious minds).

Onassis AiR (inter)national Curator & Artist-in-Residence Program

is a one-month, individual artistic research residency for international and Greek artists, living in Greece or

• abroad. This strand is for any artist
• r curator or other creative and curious

practitioner (time-based practice) who has a concrete artistic research question or project they would like to take further. Regardless of experience level, but assuming that each participant has an existing individual practice at the time of the application.

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Onassis AiR Exchange Residencies

are individual artistic research residencies, varying in duration and scope, taking place at one of our collaborating institutions, outside of

• Greece. Exchange Residencies are

intended for artists living and working in Greece within time-based practices: artists, makers, designers, theorists, curators, and other curious minds who would benefit from participating in one

• f the collaborating programs around the

world.

Onassis AiR Emergency Fellowships

are the most reactive and tailor- made strand of Onassis AiR program. Emergency Fellowships are intended for international and local artists, curators, and other practitioners. Emergency Fellowships are meant to be a stimulus to artists and curators who have a unique, unanticipated, and very time- sensitive need.

8 Program Principles

What if we could DO six impossible things before breakfast? What if we took the artistic practice, the craft, the process of creating, the process

• f research, each

individual trajectory that artists, and other curious minds, go through day in and day out, as the starting point towards a less product obsessed arts policy? What if we refused the precarity of our arts institutions? What if artists and curators could take time to reconsider their practice without expectations and constraints of the production frenzy? So why artistic research? Why another residency program? Why in Athens? What purpose and need will it address? Why would a Greek artist need this program? Or an Argentinian choreographer? Or what need does this program add within the broader international artistic landscape? And how does this program tackle the very precarious, and widely accepted standard,

• f the project-based*

economy?

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* Bojana Kunst in her essay “On Projects” proposes that “a project always denominates a temporal attitude

• r temporal mode, where the completion

is already implied in the projected future. A significant amount of what artists and cultural workers do today seems to be caught up in this unaddressed and never approached ‘projective time’. Over the course of this ‘projective time’ artists are expected to successfully negotiate both realized and unrealized projects in addition to projecting new imaginaries upon the future. The word - project - also implies completion. So in the end what always arises is a completion of already projected possibilities. However the new start is not about differences but about another promise for the future. Another indebted engagement to that which has yet to come.”

To start with, the Onassis AiR program and the resources it will offer, will hopefully create a community. A place where all the participants can interact with each other as peers. Regardless of age or how accomplished they are. To work and think and eat together as a community that does not strive for the next project, the next premiere, the next product. A community and space that is very much local. A community that has the ability to pause, to rethink how each one of us functions and creates. A space that offers time. Time to learn, to change, or go deeper, by doing and undoing or non-doing.

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“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll

DNA

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12 DNA

• Time-based: this program is for artists and

curators who work with time-based mediums.

• In-fmux: this program (and specifjcally the Critical

Practices Program) is for artists and curators with an existing professional practice, who are going through a shift, who are in-fmux, and those who look to redefjne how they work or create.

• Local: this program is very much rooted in the city
• f Athens and all the contradictions, beauty, tempo

and light that it ofgers.

• (Inter)national: this program is for artists and

curators who live in Greece & international artists, regardless of their nationality.

• DIWO: this program prefers to avoid the ethos of

DIY (do-it-yourself) and instead embraces the logic

• f DIWO (do-it-with-others). All participants must

have an interest of working and thinking and being with others (peers), and are willing to connect and engage socially within the diverse communities

• f Athens.
• Self-learning: this program is not educational,

but is based on the principles of self-learning and learning-by-doing.

• No gurus: this program will not have teachers
• r master-classes or students - instead it is based
• n peers who all have their individual craft and

methodologies and questions, and who share such concerns and questions with each other without

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unnecessary hierarchies inherent in the notion of “master artists”.

• Welcome back: this program, and its difgerent

strands, is meant to be a place you can return to. If you have been part of one of the strands (Critical Practices Program, or individual residency, or Emergency Fellowship, or workshop, etc.) you are always welcome to apply again for another strand,

• r simply come and talk to us about your needs. And

as a past participant, you are always welcome to drop by for lunch, or to borrow equipment and use the spaces (if what you need is available during that moment), or ask for advice, or use the library.

• The doer decides: this program functions on

the principles of self-organization. To borrow

• ne of the principles of an artist-run space, PAF

(Performing Arts Forum), founded by Jan Ritsema: “To say it difgerently: make it possible for others, not by retreating, not by withdrawal, or by being modest,

• n the contrary, making it possible for others is

thought as active participation. Through action

• ne ofgers and opens spaces in which others can

take part. One proposes participation in an open rehearsal, a lecture, a conversation, a fjlm or documentary showing and/or by cleaning up and maintaining all spaces. In other words: one does. The doer decides!”

• English: because most group activities will happen

in English, the offjcial working language of Onassis AiR is English.

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DNA

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Hannah Arendt defjnes culture as the relationship between society and its objects. Culture is neither society nor art, nor religion, nor entertainment nor sports for that matter, but the nature of the relation of one to the other, of society to its objects. Culture is the attitude in

• peration when society confronts the images,

products, and events of that society. If culture is that which forms between society and its products (including art), and community is that which forms between members of society, then we see that culture and community are of a similar nature, potential fjelds of activity whose shape and form are completely determined by how they are enacted, and whose guiding force is agreement.

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The Critical Practices Program

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17 Critical Practices Program FAQ

Critical Practices Program is a full time, 3-month encounter of practitioners living and working in Greece. One group of 5 participants will begin in Autumn (September 15 - December 15), and another group

• f 5 will begin in Spring (February

15 - May 15). The Critical Practices Program is designed as a collective artistic research community for visual artists, choreographers, theatre and film directors, composers, performers, curators, producers, designers, writers, cultural theorists, and other curious minds

• working within time-based

artistic practice. But isn’t it too broad in scope (time- based disciplines)? We believe that the artistic communities living and working in Greece right now could benefit from a more non-disciplinary approach (vs. trans-disciplinary / multi-disciplinary / and disciplinary in general). Artistic mediums, research and creation methodologies, society at large, have all become less binary. There are fewer and fewer polarities such as dance vs. theatre, design vs. visual art, film vs. video. The Critical Practices Program offers time, space, and a tailor-made collective research community to 10 practitioners every year, working within the broader confines of what we call time-based contemporary art practice. Is the Critical Practices Program meant for anyone from any discipline? The Critical Practices Program is for those who are in-flux, who are going through rupture, for those practitioners who are experiencing a shift within their individual artistic

• r creative trajectory. This program

is meant to be a pressure cooker for 10 practitioners per year who have a need to make a departure, or a way forward, from their existing practice towards another modality.

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CRITICAL PRACTICES PROGRAM FAQ

Can you give some keywords as to what this program is about? PROCESS / TIME / OUT-OF-FOCUS PAUSE / CONTINUITY / SELF-ORGANIZATION RESEARCH / THINK-TIME/ DISPLACEMENT UNDEFINED / DE-PRESSURING / INFECT EXCHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE / RUPTURE CONTEMPORARY / URGENCY / NECESSITY TAILOR-MADE SUPPORT / PRACTICE-BASED TRANSPARENT SELECTION CRITERIA PEER-TO- PEER / ALTERNATING RESPONSIBILITY INVESTMENT IN CONTINUITY OR INTENTIONAL DISRUPTION

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Who? Any artist or curator, living and working in Greece who has an existing professional practice, and who needs to make a shift in the way

• f working or creating. Regardless
• f age, nationality, or confines of
• ne discipline. What matters is an

existing time-based practice within contemporary art or performance

• r design or theory, and a personal

need to rethink one’s practice. What matters is to have a central research

• question. A question towards oneself,

deriving from one’s existing practice. A research question that needs to be answered in order to make a shift, a detour, towards a less precarious new direction in your practice. Educational Requirements? It does not matter if you have a formal degree, what does matter is that you have developed your own practice, and have a need to re-examine it. Language? This program is meant for any artist or curator living and working in Greece, regardless of where they come from. Also, invited mentors, those who will be passing through to give a workshop

• r a talk, and other guests, will be

coming from diverse backgrounds and

• countries. This means that the working

language of the Critical Practices Program will be English. You need to have a proficiency level of speaking and writing in English at the time of entering the program. You do not need a certificate, but will need to feel comfortable with English as a working language (speaking, reading, writing).

CRITICAL PRACTICES PROGRAM FAQ

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What is expected? The 5 participants of each group (Autumn & Spring) are expected to be

• n-site and available full-time during

the 3 months of the program. There will be times when you will be expected to be away from Athens, so please plan on being able to get away from your everyday life at some moments. You will be engaged on a daily basis. There will be weeks when you will be working 7 days a week, and some weeks that are more flexible. You will be expected to participate in all group activities, trips, workshops, visits to performances or exhibitions. During each group of the Critical Practices Program (Autumn and Spring) there will be a Group Intensive (1 month), a thematic program organized by invited mentors. Throughout the 3 months, each group of 5 participants will organize and host an Open Salon, twice a month - an informal setting to invite peers, general public and other guests to get feedback, or test an idea, or simply engage with a broader artistic community. And of course, each week-day (Monday - Friday), there will be an Open Lunch, cooked

• n a rotating basis by all inhabitants

and team of the program. This is the moment you can invite a friend, or colleagues, or curator, or your mother

• to join for lunch and find out more

about what you and your peers are doing and thinking about.

CRITICAL PRACTICES PROGRAM FAQ

The Critical Practices Program Structure

The structure of each 3-month Critical Practices Program departs from the individual research questions of each participant. Each year, two groups of 5 participants (Autumn Group: September 15 - December 15; and Spring Group: February 15 - May 15), will inhabit the Onassis AiR

• space. Each year will be difgerent and will vary depending on who the

participants are. Each group (Autumn and Spring) will have a one-month Group Intensive, designed by an invited mentor, or sparing partner. A possible theme, invited guests, collective research trips, and other activities within each 3-month program will be unique for each particular

• group. But certain components of the Critical Practices Program will

remain the same.

Introduction Weeks:

Will begin in the fjrst days of each group’s 3 month trajectory, and will focus

• n meeting each other. The basis is the group itself. During this period the

participants will be guided towards sharing their own artistic and creative methodologies with their peers, through the format of “Curate-a-Day” around your practice; of getting to know how each one works, creates, what is necessary and what is lacking. Various guests may join the group in order to give difgerent perspectives, impulses, tools, and strategies of digging through

• ne’s practice. This period is crucial in order to fjnd the common ground from

which the group will work for the coming months, always in relation to their individual research question.

Mentored Group Intensives:

During each Critical Practices Program 3-month research period, there will be a month-long Group Intensive, designed by an invited mentor. This is the most immersive part of the 3-month collective trajectory. The structure, thematic, and all the activities during each Group Intensive will be focused

• n thinking through one’s practice in relation to the wider artistic, cultural,

political, and aesthetic discourse happening in and around us today. The Group Intensive might also include a collective trip, outside of Athens and possibly outside of Greece, into the jungle or an island, or an international festival, or a commune, a refuge, a monastery, a theme park, a laboratory, a radio station, or other place that will be chosen.

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The outside within:

Each group (Autumn and Spring) will host an Open Salon (twice a month), an informal setting organized and hosted by the participants. The logic of each Open Salon, the thematic, the format, will depend on what the group of participants wants to share at that moment with their peers and general public. This is a time (twice a month) to get feedback, or share thoughts

• r ideas. There will also be regular workshops, screenings,

talks, and other Public Events hosted by Onassis AiR, in which participants of the Critical Practices Program will participate

• r even take the lead. Workshops by invited guests will be done
• n a regular basis. The goal is to address a specifjc, and perhaps

more practical need, of the group’s participants. It may be a need to fjnd out more about how to make a project budget, or a portfolio, or how to write an artist statement, or where to fjnd announcements about open calls for new work

• r funding, or the changing role of the galleries and art fairs

within the contemporary art world, or why the “Ignorant Schoolmaster” by Jacques Ranciére is a good read to read and think about. In addition, guests will be invited, talks will be given, reading groups will be formed, studio visits to fellow artists in Athens will be made, experiments will be done, exhibitions and performances and lectures will be visited. At the end of each 3-month Critical Practices program, the participants will

• rganize and be the hosts of the Open Studio Days, when the

Onassis AiR space will be open to the public, to peers, to invited guests, curators, and friends. Each participant will share their individual research question with which they entered the program, and any other input they fjnd useful, seen through the fjlter (thematic, impulses, frictions, etc.) of the 3-month Critical Practices Program. Perhaps there will be individual presentations, or a guided tour through the studios, or a walk & talk format, perhaps a collective dinner with the public, or other formats of sharing the experience of each Critical Practices Program the group has gone through. And of course there will be a party after!

CRITICAL PRACTICES PROGRAM STRUCTURE

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CRITICAL PRACTICES PROGRAM STRUCTURE

Individual Research:

The Individual Research time is meant to be a research focus during the whole time of the Critical Practices Program, but more intensely during the last month of the program. Each Individual Research should be a time devoted to answering the original research question each participant entered the program with. There is no need to produce a fjnished anything. This is not a production period! But instead it is meant as a luxurious and concentrated time to be free of production constraints, and instead to think, to experiment, to apply oneself towards your own research question. The team of Onassis AiR will be there to help and guide the individual research of each participant.

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24 Critical Practices Program Resources

What is ofgered? Each participant will receive during the 3-month Critical Practices Program:

• 1,000 EUR per month stipend

for 3 months (total 3,000 EUR all inclusive)

• Individual research and materials

budget (up to 500 EUR all inclusive)

• Greek applicants who do not

reside in Athens will also receive accommodation in a shared apartment, and a travel budget consisting of one round trip ticket to/ from Athens, up to a maximum of 500 EUR

• 24/7 access to the Onassis AiR

space

• Access to studio space and to

shared studio for group activities

• A collective budget that can

be used for the presentations and shared outcomes during the Open Studio Days (Autumn Group in December, Spring Group in May)

• A collective budget meant to

support the format of Open Salons

• Covered costs of any collective

research trips and all other activities within the framework of Group Intensives

• Access to shared audio/visual/

lighting equipment

• Access to a mentor pool of artists

and curators for up to 5 hours of feedback sessions to discuss their individual research

• Free entrance to all performances
• r events at the Onassis Cultural

Center and other venues of the Onassis Foundation

• Free access to all programmed

workshops, lectures, talks, screenings at the Onassis AiR

• Daily group lunches prepared on

the rotating basis by the participants, mentors, guests, and the team 5 times a week (M - F) in the kitchen of the Onassis AiR

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CRITICAL PRACTICES PROGRAM SELECTION 2019/20

Who selects, and when? The process and procedure of selection will always stay in fmux. There will be an Open Call (released in October of each year for the coming year). The Open Call submissions will be reviewed by an Advisory Board, a changing group of invited international and Greek artists, curators, and other practitioners, as well as the director (Ash Bulayev), the producer/ program dramaturg (Nefeli Myrodia), the invited mentor(s), and one previous participant of the Critical Practices Program. And fjnally, there will be a peer-to-peer nomination procedure. All previous participants will be asked to nominate 2 peers who they believe would benefjt from the Critical Practices Program.

• Open Call: October 2018 (deadline late-November)
• Review by Advisory Board: January 2019
• Two-day workshop with shortlisted participants: March 2019
• Final selection and announcements: April 2019

All short listed participants (roughly 20 people each year) are expected to attend the two-day selection workshop (in or outside of Athens), where the team, future mentors, and other guests will do mini-workshops, have conversations, dinners, and other formats of getting to know each other. All expenses of the two-day selection workshop will be covered by Onassis AiR. All selected participants for (Autumn 2019 and Spring 2020) will be asked to sign an agreement and be ready to participate in their selected program slot, full-time, for the duration of the whole program.

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And then there is a question of why in Athens? Why come to Athens? Or stay in Athens for those who live here? In the words of an artist and choreographer Eleanor Bauer: So we travel very far to make work inside of empty rooms that are not so difgerent from the empty rooms in the city we just left behind, maybe a grey marley fmoor instead of a black one, maybe there is a big annoying column in the middle of it, but one thing you know for sure is that the view outside the window is difgerent. And how does all that is

• utside that window change what is made? Or

does it only manifest itself in our personal lives? How is one connected to the world while in the room of one’s own? If one puts the Mac of one’s

• wn inside the room of one’s own, one becomes

virtually connected way outside the window, but what about just outside the window? Do we care where we work or not? Can we think critically about the relevance of our presence in one place

• r another? Shall we challenge ourselves to

include what is outside the window? Can we take hold of the international network and use it to our advantage instead of running around the globe chasing after the money and the space? Is it our

• bligation to move ourselves around all the time, as

living breathing art objects or cultural ambassadors and messengers? Can we challenge the institutions to move more money than people every now and then?

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The Residency Program

28 Residency Program

The name of the program is deceiving, but we all have to name things. Artists & Curators-in-Residence. What we mean by this is an artist or curator, working professionally, anywhere in the world, within time-based contemporary art practice and/or research, interested in how aesthetics, practice, society, and politics influence our existence and practice. Any artist, choreographer, director, sculptor, video artist, theorist, writer, chef, curator, producer (and many

• ther shades of what creative practice

might mean), who has a specific research question that needs to be

• answered. Curious minds who have

a concrete idea, question, process, tool, they need to explore, test, dig into, expand, make more precise, or allow time and space for idleness of thought. So one of the central questions for those who will be applying to this program from outside of Greece, and outside of Athens, is why do you need to be in Athens right now, at this moment of your artistic or curatorial

• r theoretic research trajectory? This

does not mean that your proposed research needs to be “community based” or “participatory” or “investigating the urban landscape”. You can still come and spend your time working in a studio, but you do need to consider why in this studio that is located in Athens? Is it simply because there is funding,

• r you have never been to Athens?

Or is there something that connects your research question, your artistic

• r curatorial or design or theory

trajectory to this place, this city, the communities that reside here, the landscape, the light, the language, the food? For those who live in Greece, this question is less urgent. You live in this country, and you wish to remain here, and to be supported by Onassis AiR. Perhaps you need the time and concentration and the resources to delve deeper into your research. Perhaps you would like to get away from the relentless binary of established vs. emerging, from international vs. national vs. local, and would like to work on an individual research while being in a peer environment and space with

• ther artists or curators or theorists,

from abroad, or from a small village in Greece. Perhaps you would like to not feel that you are separated from your wider international community. And instead of just meeting those “established” or “accomplished” international or local artists through going to one of their performances

• r exhibitions or workshops, you

would prefer to work along one another, next to each other.

29 Residency Program FAQ

So who is it for finally?

For any artist or curator or other creative and curious practitioner who has a concrete artistic research question they would like to take further. It is for those

• utside of Greece, and those living in
• Greece. Regardless of age or nationality.

Regardless of experience level, but assuming that each participant has an existing individual time-based practice at the time of the application.

What is expected?

Your presence at the Onassis AiR during the full duration of the residency (up to 1 month). Of course your research may take you to other places of Athens for some days, but the general expectation is that you will be on-site during the duration of your residency. Each Onassis AiR resident will contribute to the common program by giving a lecture, a screening of their work, a workshop, or other activity open to other inhabitants of Onassis AiR, and the general public when appropriate. You will also share the experience of cooking some lunches and eating some lunches together with your colleagues and team at the Onassis AiR kitchen. You will also be asked to leave something that inspires you, a book, a CD, an object, that relates to your practice or current research, in the Onassis AiR library, so that your future peers can find out a bit about you.

30 Residency Program Resources

• An individual residency in Athens

at the Onassis AiR of up to 1 month

• The possible periods of being in

residence are from September until June

• Artistic Stipend of 1,300 EUR (all

inclusive)

• Materials/production budget

up to a maximum of 1,500 EUR (all inclusive)

• International and Greek applicants

who do not reside in Athens will also receive accommodation in a shared apartment, a travel budget consisting of one round trip ticket to/ from Athens up to a maximum of 500 EUR, as well as local travel budget consisting of fixed amount of 84 EUR for airportto city transfers, and 2.80 EUR per day for public transport while in Athens

• 24/7 access to the Onassis AiR

space

• Individual studio space for the

duration of the residency and access to shared studio for group activities

• Access to shared audio/visual/

lighting equipment

• Access to a mentor pool of artists

and curators for up to 5 hours of feedback sessions to discuss the individual research

• Free entrance to all performances

and events at the Onassis Cultural Center, and other parts of the Onassis Foundation

• Free access to all programmed

workshops, lectures, talks, screenings at the Onassis AiR

• And daily group lunches

prepared on the rotating basis by the participants, mentors, guests, and team, 5 times a week (M - F) in the kitchen of the Onassis AiR

• Artists, scholars, and practitioners

can apply individually, or as a group. However, if artists apply as a group,

• nly one individual will be funded

(additional costs when more than

• ne person will need to be covered

by resident), although we will help you find additional funding when possible.

What is ofgered?

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RESIDENCY PROGRAM SELECTION 2019/20

The process and procedure of selection will always stay in flux. There will be an Open Call (released in October of each year for the coming year). The Open Call submissions will be reviewed by an Advisory Board, a changing group of invited international and Greek artists, curators, designers and other practitioners, as well as the director (Ash Bulayev), the producer/program dramaturg (Nefeli Myrodia), and one previous participant of the Onassis AiR Residency Program. And finally, there will be a peer-to-peer nomination

• procedure. All previous participants will be asked to nominate 2 peers who

they believe would benefit from this program.

• Open Call: October 2018 (deadline late-November)
• Review by Advisory Board: January 2019
• Second selection round interviews: January and February 2019
• Final selection and announcements: April 2019

The results of the Open Call and final selection of participants will be communicated in April 2019 for residencies taking place between September 2019 and June 2020.

Who selects, and when?

Exchange Residencies

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33 Exchange Residencies FAQ

Onassis AiR Exchange Residencies are intended for artists, curators, and other curious minds who would benefit from taking place in a partner residency program away from Greece (see list below).

Is it for me?

If your practice could benefit from attending one of the collaborating residency programs, it is for you. The Onassis AiR Exchange Residency strand is intended for those living and working in Greece, exclusively. These exchange residencies are awarded regardless of age or nationality. Regardless of experience level, but assuming that each applicant and participant has an existing individual time-based practice at the time of the application, and a clear need of attending one of the collaborating residency programs, that would propel that practice further, or allow a shift of such practice towards a new direction.

What is expected?

Each Onassis AiR Exchange Residency participant commits to participate in the collaborating residency program as per the guidelines and rules of that

• program. Upon return to Greece,

each participant will present to the Onassis AiR community of peers and the general public the

• utcome of their research and

activities at the exchange residency they have attended. The format of such presentation may be a talk, a workshop, a screening, a dinner

• r other format the participant

will invent. Also, each participant will submit to the Onassis AiR Program a report or other form

• f documentation of research

completed during their research, that can consist of a text, a film, a slide presentation, a vlog, or other forms

• f expanded documentation and
• reporting. You will also be asked to

leave something that inspires you: a book, a CD, an object, that relates to your practice or current research, in the Onassis AiR Library, so that your future peers can find out a bit about you.

34 Exchange Residencies Resources

What is ofgered?

It will greatly depend on each specific collaborating residency program. The support will include one or all of the following:

• Artistic fee
• Travel and accommodation in the

collaborating residency program

• Materials or other program costs
• Living expenses such as food, local

transportation, and other local costs

• Administrative costs of the

collaborating residency program to facilitate the selected Onassis Exchange Residency Fellow coming from Greece

• The total support will not exceed

7,000 EUR and will be inclusive of all expenses

• If additional funding is necessary due

to cost of living at the partner exchange residency program, the team of Onassis AiR will assist the awarded participant to raise the necessary funds in order to make the exchange residency possible.

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EXCHANGE RESIDENCIES PROGRAM SELECTION 2019/20

Who selects, and when?

The process and procedure of selection will always stay in-flux. There will be an Open Call (released in October of each year for the coming year). The Open Call submissions will be reviewed by an Advisory Board, a changing group of invited international and Greek artists, curators, designers and other practitioners, as well as the director (Ash Bulayev), the producer/program dramaturg (Nefeli Myrodia), and one previous participant of the Onassis AiR Exchange Residency Program. And finally, there will be a peer-to-peer nomination procedure. All previous participants will be asked to nominate 2 peers who they believe would benefit from this program. The Onassis AiR Advisory Board will shortlist a specific number of applicants. Each collaborating residency program will then select the final participants through their own selection process procedure.

• Open Call: October 2018 (deadline late-November)
• Review by Advisory Board: January 2019
• Second selection round interviews: January and February 2019
• Applications of shortlisted applicants to the collaborating exchange

residency program: depends on each program timeline

36 Exchange Residencies 2019/20

Capacete - Rio de Janeiro / Brazil

Capacete is an independent residency program founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1998 by the artist Helmut Batista. Its activities reflect its long-term interdisciplinary initiatives as a mobile and independent art space. Capacete facilitates the research, contacts and documenting of aesthetic, cultural, social and political processes in Brazil and in other South American countries, establishing also dialogues with international contexts outside the

• continent. The political, historic, urban, topographic, environmental and social

contexts of South American cities provide vital laboratories in which to probe and create within the continent’s complexities. Capacete projects departs form the assumption that the most important moments happen in the “in-between spaces” and “in-between times” and so, they present themselves in actuating and unstable ways, therefore being unpredictable and uncontrollable. The question of how to build perspectives for exchange of knowledge in a non-linear and non-hierarchical way, continuously, informs many of our programs. We consider as of vital importance not only to represent and promote the continuing developments in the language of art, but also to provide a platform to organize and document the many involved author’s production. Capacete aims to facilitate and to create productions that are bursting with the idea of a permanent space. The interest is the space between the gallery and the city as urban history, in its multiple manifestations and functions as a discursive platform of the curatorial proposal, building a lively dialogue with its participants.

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EXCHANGE RESIDENCIES 2019/20

Beirut Art Residency (BAR) - Beirut / Lebanon

Beirut Art Residency (BAR) is a live/work space for artists looking to develop and exhibit projects in a stimulating environment. Launched in September 2015, the Beirut Art Residency (BAR) is a non-profit, artist-run residency program for international artists looking to research and produce work in a new environment in Beirut, away from their usual surroundings. BAR residency aims to maximize the artist’s experience: to help realize short-term projects as well as advance long-term goals. Residents benefit from the creative, technical and logistical support of BAR dedicated team as well as weekly studio visits by curators and other art professionals. Size: The residency is equipped with the required resources to support our artists’ needs and ambitions. BAR hosts 3-5 artists at a time. Duration: The average residency period is two months. Longer periods can be considered on a case-by-case basis. Discipline: BAR is open to most disciplines: painting, photography, design, sculpture, installation, curating, writing and film. BAR exhibition program aims to contextualize existing and new works within critical frameworks. At the end of each residency period, BAR hosts an Open Studios to showcase the works of the artists. BAR provides the following to all residency artists: curatorial advice, local collaborations, engagement with local institutions, integration through cultural events, material sourcing, logistical support, promotion through social media and other channels. Residencies and Open Studio exhibitions are complemented by events including artist talks, seminars, screenings and performances. An interactive program is offered to Beirut Art Residency’s local community through its participatory program of activities.

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Maybe it would be nicer if we could just fall down, give in to gravity tumble or stumble or jump or slowly sink into a hole in the ground This hole can be any size large or small to put your head in so you don’t have to see for a while to sink your ass in so you can stay steady for a while a hiding place - hiding things or animals or people a protective shelter - a sanctuary a fjreplace a cave a trench, a place to shoot from a void to rest in holes can be there spontaneously

• r planned long in advance dug by
• ne person with a shovel
• r an entire construction team

there can be very specifjc holes like a girl’s only hole a hole for people who want to do a hole for people who only want to lie down a hole for listening a hole for laughing a hole for dancing a hole for healing a hole for painting a hole for fjghting a groove for rapping a crater for objects - or one object a furrow for stories a vacuum for nothing a nook like a tomb a chamber that lifts unheard voices a hollow without people an abyss with only smoke a fjssure for madness a crack for failure a pit for everything that is there already and we don’t need anything more a cavern for how to get the billions from the one percent a ditch for looking back many chinks for the unnamed unknown

• f course there can be cross-

holes You don’t have to be seduced to go into a hole you just fall in there,

• r maybe you’re being gently

pushed in there. It’s clear that there is no place in those holes for the artist or the curator as individual stars anyway no individual star artist or curator would like to hang out in a hole. There are no prizes to win there, no prestige, no decorum. A hole in the ground is not a job

• pportunity or a career step, it’s a

commitment. There are parties, there is celebration. A hole for what we lost. A hole for the forgotten. In the holes the new does not exist Sarah Vanhee

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The Emergency Fellowships

40 Emergency Fellowships FAQ

Each year five (5) Onassis AiR Emergency Fellowships will be

• awarded. Each one is a tailor-

made support. There is no copy-paste. These fellowships are intended for both international artists, curators, as well as those living and working in Greece. These fellowships are not intended for presenting your work, or for engaging in an academic program. They are not meant to be used for any kind of production related

• activity. Instead these fellowships

are meant to be highly responsive to address volatile situations around the world or in Greece, or time-sensitive artistic research, or, unanticipated professional needs.

Is it for me?

If you are an artist or curator living in Greece or anywhere else in the world, working in time-based artistic

• practice. If you have an urgent artistic

research or professional development need that is time sensitive, be it in relation to a political or social event unravelling right now in the world,

• r a circumstance in relation to your
• wn practice.

Perhaps you live in Greece and your artistic practice deals with the political natural disasters, and right now there is an aftermath

• f a hurricane in Guatemala. Or

maybe you are an artist whose career has flat-lined due to the fact that you need some advice from a professional producer or curator. Or maybe you are an international artist whose research and professional career depends on meeting a person who is about to die and there is no time to lose.

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EMERGENCY FELLOWSHIPS FAQ

What is expected?

Each Onassis AiR Emergency Fellow will be expected to offer to the rest of the Onassis AiR community of participants and peers some format (it may be a talk, a dinner, a workshop, etc.) of sharing what has transpired during the Emergency Fellowship. You will also be asked to leave something that inspires you, a book, a CD, an object, that relates to your practice or current research, in the Onassis AiR library, so that your future peers can find out a bit about you.

What is offered?

• An individual and custom-made

Emergency Fellowship

• Onassis AiR Emergency

Fellowship stipend inclusive of travel, accommodation, participation fees in any and all, up to a maximum of 3,000 EUR (all inclusive)

• Each selected Onassis AiR

Emergency Fellow will receive feedback from the director and/or program dramaturg, regarding the tailor-made structure of the fellowship. This may include thinking together about ideal institutions and/or professionals who the fellow would meet during the fellowship, making introductions in order to facilitate such meetings, and any other feedback

• r advice the fellow may need prior and

during the fellowship timeframe

• For Onassis AiR Emergency Fellows

who would pursue research in Athens, additional resources may be available such as: access to shared audio/ visual/ lighting equipment, free entrance to all performances at the Onassis Cultural Center, free access to all programmed workshops, lectures, talks, screenings at the Onassis AiR, and daily group lunches prepared on the rotating basis by the participants, mentors, guests, and team, 5 times a week (M - F) in the kitchen of the Onassis AiR

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EMERGENCY FELLOWSHIPS SELECTION 2019/20

Who selects, and when? The selection of awarded (5 per year) Onassis AiR Emergency Fellowships will be done by the Director and/or Program Dramaturg

• f Onassis AiR, on the ongoing basis, depending on need.

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Public Events

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44 Public Events

Open Salon and Open Studio Days (CP)

Twice a month (between September - December and February - May), each of the Critical Practices groups (Autumn and Spring) will host an Open Salon, an informal setting organized and hosted by each group of participants. The logic

• f each Open Salon, the thematic, the format, will depend on what the group
• f participants wants to share at that moment with their peers and general
• public. This is a time (twice a month) to get feedback, or share thoughts or
• ideas. At the end of each 3-month Critical Practices program, the participants

will organize and be the hosts of the Open Studio Days, when the Onassis AiR space will be open to the public, to peers, to invited guests, curators, and friends. Each participant will share their individual research question with which they entered the program, and any other input they find useful, seen through the filter (thematic, impulses, frictions, etc.) of the 3-month Critical Practices Program. Perhaps there will be individual presentations, or a guided tour through the studios, or a walk & talk format, perhaps a collective dinner with the public, or other formats of sharing the experience of each Critical Practices Program the group has gone through. And of course there will be a party after!

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PUBLIC EVENTS

Talks / Screenings

Between September and June, each month one public talk or artist/curator screening will happen as part of different strands of the Onassis AiR program. Be it within the context of the collective Critical Practices Program, or by one

• f the individual artists or curators in-residence, or perhaps by an outside

guest discussing a thematic that is relevant to current residents. The schedule and topics of each talk will be announced ahead of time and all are welcome, to listen, discuss and drink a glass of wine after each talk. All talks and screenings will be free.

Workshops

Similar to the schedule of public talks/screenings, there will be a monthly workshop, between September and June each year. The focus, thematic, as well as capacity of participants will vary for each workshop. Some workshops will be within the framework of the Critical Practices Program and may be limited to participants of that year’s program (Autumn and Spring). Some workshops will be focused on a very concrete professional development need (f.e. budgeting, EU funding, dramaturgy of public space live installations). Some might address a specific research theme or methodology used by one

• f the residents. The program for each workshop will be announced ahead
• f time, with specific information on the schedule, number of participants,

location, etc. All workshops will be free.

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Borrowing a metaphor proposed by philosopher and curator, Daniel Blanga Gubbay, in his essay “The Mỏbius Strip. On Fictional Institutions”, the Mỏbius strip could act as a way to imagine how this very concrete residency program may interact with peer institutions and individuals: It is here that, while going back to the small model I started with, I would like to propose to shift the paper circle into the fjgure of the Mỏbius strip, a fjgure discovered by Mỏbius in 1858. It is enough to disconnect the band and link it once more, turning one of the two sides. What does this gesture produce? The Mỏbius strip is a band producing a continuous surface that has one side and one border, and in which one can no longer distinguish the difgerences between the inside and the outside. I was looking at the band as the image of an institution, having defjned limits, protecting and creating and inside and an

• utside, and sometimes hosting fjction. And yet –

while losing the boundaries – the band still has a precise shape: the small model does not dissolve in a fmexible and liquid one, infjltrating qualities that often imply precariousness and vulnerability. It reclaims its solidity: yet it hosts and is hosted by fjction, suggesting to welcome and produce events that are really unexpected, in order to create they own possibilities.

Collaborations

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48 48 Collaborations

In order to not become insular, fragmented or introverted, Onassis AiR will collaborate with like-minded institutions, artist-run initiatives, fantastical and real experiments, in Greece and in other parts of the world. These collaborations will manifest themselves in various ways. Sometimes pro-actively and sometimes intuitively and spontaneously.

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COLLABORATIONS

Re-Shape Network

RESHAPE is a European project, run by twelve (12) partners and seven (7) associated partners from 17 countries, supporting arts professionals in contemporary performing arts to reinvent the sector’s organizational models in line with evolutions of society and the arts ecosystem. The partners are all intermediary organizations who have a deep knowledge on the performing arts scene in their countries and experience in monitoring and supporting its

• evolution. RESHAPE is a prototype of a collaborative, transnational method

to rebuild performing arts’ organizational models. It identifies structures in wider Europe who test practices that indicate future models and evolutions. It provides a framework to join them together, raise their experiments to a truly transnational scale and put their creativity in the service of the whole performing arts sector. The project proposes concrete solutions for five challenges: How to upgrade audience development by practicing citizenship together? How to make open, inclusive and flexible governance models? How to better understand and promote the value of art in the social fabric? How can solidarity funding secure the vitality of contemporary creation? What framework and tools do artists working transnationally need and how to provide them? The Onassis AiR will participate as one of the partners and concentrate on one of the five thematic trajectories, specifically: what are the most appropriate governance models? Collectives and informal and/or ephemeral partnerships are booming in the performing arts. The ‘self-organization’ of artists is a deep trend that covers very diverse models and organizational forms treating very different functions, all relevant to artistic development. Numerous artistic initiatives experiment with new organizational models that are more in tune with how contemporary performing arts engage with society. How can we learn from all these attempts? What social, ethical, administrative and legal aspects of collective governance and self-organization can we keep and cherish on a transnational scale? Within the scope of RESHAPE, Onassis AiR will organize a workshop with all the participating partners and artists, policy makers, curators, and other arts professionals, in Athens in April 2020.

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ASFA - Athens School of Fine Arts 2019/21

The Athens School of Fine Arts is one of the most progressive educational institutions in Greece. The pilot collaboration program designed with ASFA will begin in 2019: A pilot collaboration will take place in one of the unique facilities of ASFA Annexes (Hydra, Mykonos, Delphi, etc.). The purpose is to delve deeper into expanded publishing methodologies. One Greek or international artist, designer, scholar, curator

• r other cultural practitioner, will develop (approximately) a one-week program

focused on a thematic or research question to be determined in collaboration with the ASFA team and Onassis AiR director and program dramaturg. The one-week program would run at one of the ASFA Annexes with a selected group of up to 10 ASFA students who would collectively develop an experimental publishing project, from start to finish during the workshop. Also, each year the Onassis AiR program will select one recent graduate of the Athens School of Fine Arts, through the open call process, to be an artist- in-residence at Onassis AiR. Lastly, each year one or several side activities organised by Onassis AiR will be hosted by ASFA Annexes in one of its locations. These activities may include, a workshop, a lab, or other public or group activities.

COLLABORATIONS

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Athens & Epidaurus Festival 2019

Greece’s foremost cultural festival and one of the oldest performing arts festivals in Europe (1955), the Athens & Epidaurus Festival each year presents numerous theatre, dance, and music artists, acclaimed in Greece and worldwide, attracting large audiences from around the world. In Spring 2019, Athens Festival will collaborate with Onassis AiR on designing and facilitating a cycle of professional development workshop sessions aimed at commissioned artists whose projects (performance or concert or performative exhibition) will be presented during the official program of the 2019 Athens Festival. Selected artists whose current work, or current interests, are grounded in interdisciplinary practices, will be invited to participate in three intensive workshop sessions, guided by one internationally accomplished dramaturg (working across disciplines), one independent curator or artistic director of a festival or venue, and one producer (working with interdisciplinary contemporary performance artists). Each of the three (3) invited individuals will design and facilitate a two-day session for each artist. The sessions will be custom-made in format and approach, and will focus on the development of the projects, examining every artistic work from different perspectives (dramaturgy, curation, and production). The goal is to dissect each work, and to find ways to make them more precise, more feasible, more contextual in relation to each session’s focus.

COLLABORATIONS

52 To borrow the spirit of an artist-run space, PAF (Performing Arts Forum) founded by Jan Ritsema: The highly appreciated autonomy can only be maintained when everybody takes part in the everyday maintenance. In other words: don’t leave traces and put things back where you found them. To be more concrete: clean up the personal and general dirt you left behind you. Do not colonize space nor information (for example books), and keep information, materials, tools and spaces available and moveable. To say it difgerently: make it possible for others, not by retreating, not by withdrawal, or by being modest, on the contrary, making it possible for others is thought as active participation. Through action one ofgers and

• pens spaces in which others can take part. One

proposes participation in an open rehearsal, a lecture, a conversation, a fjlm or documentary showing and/or by cleaning up and maintaining all spaces. In other words: one does. The doer decides!

53 53

Space

54 Space

Enabling autonomy

The spaces of this program are meant to be used. They are yours to use! There will be no permanent technicians or caretakers. There is a very small team (director and producer/program dramaturg), so that means that all the upkeep of the individual studios or the common spaces is up to all of the inhabitants of these spaces to keep alive and available for others. In other words, the spaces of Onassis AiR are yours to use, and yours to care for!

Welcome back

The other principle of this program and the spaces is that of a growing community that always welcomes you back. If you need to borrow equipment, to use a studio for some time, to get advice or help with your project, to use the library, or just to drop by and have lunch.

Kitchen

Perhaps the most important communal space of Onassis AiR is a kitchen. The kitchen is used daily by the whole community of the Onassis AiR, (and the Maker Space program), for lunches (during weekdays) and is a place to meet, to cook and eat together, and share ideas and thoughts away from individual projects and studio spaces. The daily lunches are a way for a visitor to come into contact with the whole community present in the building at that time. Daily lunches are prepared on rotating basis by all residents, team, mentors,

• etc. On weekends there will be basic groceries in the refrigerator for the

common use.

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SPACE

Studios

There are individual studios that are meant to be used as working spaces during the Critical Practices Program, individual residencies and other

• activities. Each studio has basic working furniture - a table, a chair,

perhaps a sofa, basic lighting and of course internet/wifi connection. The logic is that each studio will never become yours and only yours. If you need a space to work and concentrate in, then use it. If you do not need it, someone else will use it. The schedule of who uses which studio will be done collectively by all participants who are in-house at each particular period. A small, but ever-growing library is our archive, is your archive, and tool to be used while in residence or anytime after. Because each participant

• f the program is asked to donate a book, a journal, a DVD, an object, and

art piece - this common library will eventually become the living journal

• f this program, and its archiver.

Equipment

The program has a basic stock equipment. This is not meant to be a production equipment, but more of testing, trying, playing type of tools. The equipment inventory includes basic lighting (theatrical and film) equipment such as lights, control board, dimmers, stands. Also basic video equipment such as 4K video camera and lens package, tripods, etc. are available. Audio equipment includes speakers, microphones, mixing table, headphones. There are video projectors and a large plasma TV

• screen. A large, industrial printer is also available for common use.

Team

56

57 Team

The team of the Onassis AiR is intentionally small - we want to be able to morph, adapt and not become stagnant. And we believe that it is important to work with other practitioners as temporary team members, depending on the need or coming out of a natural

• ccurrence - a fascination in a thematic, or way of working, or
• ther yet unknown encounters.

Therefore the permanent team consists of only two positions: the director and creative producer/program dramaturg.

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Director Ash Bulayev has worked for 20 years as curator, producer and artist, at the cross-section of contemporary performance and time-based visual arts. From 2012 – 2015 he was the Curator

• f Contemporary Performance at

EMPAC (New York), commissioning new works by artists such as Ant Hampton, Eve Sussman + Simon Lee, Temporary Distortion, Lars Jan, Kris Verdonck, Ellie Ga and many

• thers, as well as presenting the

work of Rabih Mroue, Xavier Le Roy, Lisbeth Gruwez, Ralph Lemon, Marie Brassard, Clement Layes, Wojtek Ziemilski, Julien Maire, and other contemporary time-based artists. He is also collaborating as a creative producer with Dries Verhoeven, Miet Warlop and Lotte van den Berg. In 2015/16 he has collaborated as producer and consultant with Maria Hassabi, DD Dorvillier, Julian Hetzel, Germaine Kruip and Kat Valastur. From 2002-11, he was a Co-Artistic Director (in collaboration with Tzeni Argyriou) of amorphy.

• rg, a collaborative platform

for experiments in the fusion of performing arts and old/new media. In 2006-07, he was the project initiator and research director for the EU Culture 2000 funded project i- MAP (Integration of Media and Performance) in collaboration with leading media arts organizations in the Netherlands, Germany, Greece and Bulgaria. From 1991 until 2002 he lived and worked and played in New York City, learning what it means to make, to make with others, and to play seriously. He holds an MA in performance from DasArts, an internationally acclaimed graduate program from the Amsterdam School of the Arts.

TEAM

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Creative Producer / Program Dramaturg Nefeli Myrodia works as a cultural producer for the development

• f projects with a focus on

contemporary performance and visual arts. She has studied International and European Economics and continued with Master’s degrees in International Political Economy and in Digital Arts. In 2015 she was the production manager in Athens of the swiss Artists-in-Residence program Sound Development

• City. In October 2015 she

took over the production management in Greece of the Swiss interdisciplinary festival Culturescapes 2017. She has worked as program coordinator and production manager of the Athens Biennale and she was the international relations coordinator

• f the artistic program of

Kalamata:21 ECoC Candidacy

• Office. Since 2017 she is also

side events director and curator

• f the performance platform of

Hellas Filmbox Berlin. Her previous professional experience is in theatre, where she has worked in dramaturgy, direction, production, research and director’s assistance for international productions (in collaboration with Rimini Protokoll, Poka-Yio, Armin Kerber, Michael Marmarinos, Stathis Livathinos).

TEAM

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Photos by Tassos Vrettos

O N A S S I S A i R

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