03 Nov 2015

Call for Artists: IoDeposito NGO

Object: CALL FOR ARTISTS
B#SIDE WAR PROJECT
Artistic festival on the legacies of the Great War on the contemporary time

AIM OF THIS CALL

This call for artists aims at researching artistic contributions based on different features (photographs, paintings, drawings, collages, installation, digital and sound art, happenings and performances of visual art) for the artistic and cultural festival B#SIDE WAR (more info here: www.iodeposito.org).
In its second edition, this festival will see the realisation of several collective and personal art exhibitions in Italy and Slovenia, as well as the installation of contemporary artworks in relevant sites linked to the First World War (museums, monuments, thematic parks). The artworks selected with this call for artists will be placed within the art exhibitions taking place for the festival itself in eight Italian and Slovenian cities, such as Venice, Trieste and Pirano, to name just a few.
In its first edition, the festival B#SIDE WAR counted more than 16.000 visitors.

APPLICATIONS: TIMELINE AND DEADLINES

No fees are required to participate in the selection.
The selected artworks will be exhibited in 2016 according to the cultural events of the project.

In order to apply for this call, the artists should send by November 30th 2015 to info@iodeposito.org, indicating 'Call for artists' as object of the email, the following documents (in English or French or Italian):

- a short presentation/bio of the artist (maximum one page), together with references to the artist's website, if applicable;
- a short presentation of the candidate artwork (maximum one page);
- if the artwork has already been realised, please attach to your application images and/or photographs;
- any other documents will be welcomed.

Artists will be informed whether their artwork has been accepted or not by the end of December 2016.


NATURE OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS
Different kinds of contributions will be accepted. Precedence will be given to the digital and sound artworks, as well as to photographs. However, room will be provided also for paintings, drawings, collages, installation, light art, happenings e performances. The artworks can bear reference to different artistic trends (conceptual art, figurative art, neo-dada, neo-pop, etc.) and they have to be based on one of the three following themes:

• Theme 1 – THE MONUMENT: OLD AND NEW ROLES OF THE MONUMENT, NEW KIND OF MONUMENTS AND INNOVATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE MONUMENT'S FUNCTION

The main aim of this theme is to explore the dialogue between the artists and the concept of Memorial/Monument as well as to portray those monuments that have a shape or a function which is different from the typical idea of the First World War monuments. The monument is to be explored according to its old and new roles, starting from the artist's point of view and to his/her inspiration. The theme of the monument can also be addressed on the basis of the 'structures', meaning places and constructions left behind by the Great War (ruins, trenches, pillboxes). Moreover, it is also possible to investigate the role that monuments have played and still play in remembering events and facts from the past and in conditioning our present perceptions.

• Theme 2 – LACK OF PERSPECTIVE, PERSPECTIVAL DECEPTION AND OPTICAL ILLUSION

1915 represents the year of the 'great illusion': everyone thought that the war would have been as quick as possible. Unfortunately, awareness soon took the floor among the troops and the civil people.
The theme of the perspectival deceit is strictly linked to the war: the war produces many deceits in those who fight, in those who are subjected to the war, such as civilian people, and in those who observe it. Illusion can be:
- Geographical and related to the distances and the misperception of distances;
- Perspectival and related to the constriction of the field of vision (as in gunsights and embrasures, letting the soldier focusing on something, yet, at the same time, making him loose the overall situation);
- Perspectival and related to the self and to each one's perspective on the position of his/her soul and body (many war diaries testimony that the soldiers rarely knew with precision where they were fighting and where they would have gone next);
- Perspectival and related to the soldiers' reduced conscience of the external and the internal images of the war, such as the world, the enemy, the trenches as well as the fear, the emotions and the memories;
- Perspectival and related to the metaphors linking the past to the future (as François Furet wrote, 'As any great event, the war reveals what happened beforehand and it invents the figures, or rather the monsters, of the future'. War is hence that moment in which the perspective on the past and that on the future show themselves in the present).

• Theme 3 – THE MILITARISATION OF THE CIVIL LIFE

The militarisation of the civil life is one of the main heritages that, from the Great War, has reached the conflicts of the contemporary time. It can be seen throughout many lenses, such as:
- The occupation of the civil houses by the soldiers (with cases of solidarity and mutual respect between the families and the occupying troops, to cases of abuses and violence);
- The impoverishment of the zones behind the fronts, as they had to support the war with their own provisions and supplies. The red zones became from time to time a hunting field, as well as a 'placenta' nourishing the fighters, and a nobody's land where nobody could actually live;
- The passage from the military advance to the standing war, made of trenches, of solitude and of despairing 'timeless' sensation, with the consequent psychological weariness both of the soldiers and of the population;
- The idea of the civil war, both in a metaphorical way (as internal and individual tension) and in a social and political way, referred to the internal disorders created by the war. The psychological interpretation the war can be addressed too, by looking at the war as a way to channel everyone's confusion into an attack-and-escape directed to an outsider enemy;
- The mandatory conscription and the participation to massacres and killings: this theme can also take into consideration the repression against soldiers as well as punishments, suicides and shame on those who try to escape or desert the army.

DESCRIPTION OF THE ASSOCIATION AND OF THE B#SIDE WAR FESTIVAL
Founded in 2009 with the aim of contributing to the advancement of the cultural welfare and of the young people's cultural well-being in the North-East of Italy, IoDeposito NGO (www.iodeposito.org) works nowadays on an international scale together with a network of partners from Italy and the World (Museums, Universities, Academy, Public Institutions). It has involved around one hundred thousand people in its projects (workshops, laboratories, cultural events, conferences, publications). Mostly, it has developed a unique expertise in the organisation of artistic and cultural events as well as in the research field dealing with the theme of memories and memoirs and the First World War.
Committed to the analysis of the heritage that has connected the First World War to our everyday life, this association has decided to promote the B#SIDE WAR festival in order to investigate the memories of the Great War, its 'B sides' and its legacy on our contemporary time. Thanks to the participation of several international artists, this festival has already reached its second edition and has developed many events (site-specific art installations, art exhibition, conferences and talks, performances and happenings) in those many Italian places which are significantly linked to our common past.

For further information, please contact:
info@iodeposito.org | www.iodeposito.org