OPEN CALL
28th Annual Festival of Alternative Art
Did it ever happen to you to paint a portrait, but not necessarily willing to depict a person? Was it something else? A feeling? A moment? When Emma, a young womxn artist, who is the main character of Zabel Essayan’s novel « My Soul in Exile », paints an autoportrait, she asks herself: « Can I hope that they will see everything that I wanted to put in this portrait, that they will not linger on the features hastily sketched on purpose, that they will be able to sense not the young woman, the fleshy being, but the heartbreak and homesickness that have always gripped my soul?»
The edition of the festival takes a starting point the work of Zabel Essayan, one of the most significant womxn of letters in Armenian literature of the beginning of the 20th century and a prominent activist. Her literary and social heritage reveals a crucial question for many artists of our times: how does the artist divide themselves between the desire and need to create and their role and duty towards society? How can a romantic gesture become political? The open call invites to submit existing works and new proposals reflecting the themes of political in poetical, social engagement in art, art making as changing reality practice.
Ekaterina Shcherbakova
Curator: Ekaterina Shcherbakova (born in Novorossiysk, 1990) lives and works in Paris. She is a curator, artist, teacher, and writer. Ekaterina is the alumni of Ecole du Magasin curatorial training program (Grenoble, France) and holds master degrees in Philosophy from the National University the Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia), Philosophy of Art from Sorbonne University (Paris), Contemporary Art from Paris 8 University. She is a PhD researcher at the art department of Paris 8 University. She has collaborated with numerous art institutions in France and abroad. Among her recent and favorite exhibitions: How to disappear completely and never be found at Typography Art Center (Krasnodar, Russia, 2021), What can be shown, cannot be said at the Art Center Le CAP Saint-Fons (France, 2020), I am before, I am almost, I am never at Contemporary Art Center Parc Saint-Leger (Pougues-les-Eaux, France, 2020), 1 iJ at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (Tallinn, Estonia, 2018), How do you know tomorrow started if there is no night? (Villa Belleville, Paris, 2017). She is founder of artist-curator time-space All the best (Paris). She teaches Unlearning Curating at the art department of Paris 8 University.
Deadline of the applications is 29.02.24.
The opening of the exhibition is on 5th of April.
Find the application form here:https://forms.gle/JS4REKxQfQw8gQMK6
NPAK, 2024
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