ECHO II – Open call for artists (extra)

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We are looking for 4 artists (1 from Greece, 1 from Bulgaria, 1 from North Macedonia, and 1 from Hungary), who are working in the fields of painting, sculpture, graphicdesign, fashion design, craftwork, and mural to participate in the fifth *extra* art residency of the project.

The Art Residency in Smolyan (Bulgaria), 24 September – 21 October 2021

If we select you, you will be part of a four-member team of artists (coming from Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, and North Macedonia), and, in dialogue with the local community, will create artworks inspired by the local traditional folklore customs and household items of the Smolyan town.

 Requirements

If you are interested in applying, you need to take into consideration the following requirements in relation to the artworks you are expected to create:

  • Paintings: One big scale painting (min. 100×100 cm),  or a series of paintings smaller than the given dimensions (min. two pieces).
  • Sculptures and Craftwork: One big scale sculpture or installation (min 100x40x40 cm), or a series of sculptures and objects smaller than the given dimensions (min. two pieces).
  • Graphic Design: a complete set of artworks at least.
  • Fashion Design: a collection of 12 pieces (combination of illustrations and outfits).
  • Mural sketches: one wall with dimensions: 4.4 x 11 m.

Accommodation, travel expenses and benefits

We will cover your accommodation, travel and living expenses, as well as the expenses of the materials needed for the creation of your artworks (within the limits of the project budget). Also, we will offer you visibility and networking opportunities, as well as opportunities for commercial collaborations, in order for you to benefit economically from your creations.

Presentation of the Artworks

Local exhibitions

We will present the artworks you will create in a local arts exhibition, which we will organise in Smolyan after the residency. We will announce the exact dates in due time.

Digital exhibition

At the end of the residency, we will digitise your artworks, and publish them on the digital collection of the ECHO II website.

Open Access Policy

We will publish the digital copies of your artworks under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license, allowing their reuse and remix for any purpose under the terms and conditions of the license.

We will dedicate the metadata, i.e. the information documenting your artworks (title and type of the artwork, name of the artist, artistic technique, conceptualisation etc.), to the Public Domain, allowing their reuse for any purpose without terms and conditions. For more information about the Public Domain Dedication, please see the CC0 1.0 Universal deed.

We have chosen this particular open access policy in order for the public to reuse your artworks and their metadata for educational, research and other creative purposes. We respect the fact that the ECHO II project is funded by the European citizens (through taxation), and wish to offer them the possibility to get benefited by the creative results of ECHO II, during and after the project. 

Benefits of open access policy for the participant artists

  • CC licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain reuses of your work – a “some rights reserved” copyright.
  • CC provides you global recognition. Increasingly, creators in the digital environment are recognising the CC concept and iconography, easily identifying the specific reuses it allows. Content sharing platforms (such as Flickr and Vimeo) are employing CC licensing in their upload process, while search sites (such as Google) have created CC-specific search engines.
  • CC has international application. The latest version of Creative Commons licences (4.0) is specifically designed to be global in its application, and to be enforceable with the same effect in any jurisdiction.
  • CC licences are easy to understand by both creators and users. Each licence has its own licence button which can be attached to content to indicate that it is CC licensed and under what terms. By clicking on this button, the user is taken to the ‘Licence Deed’, which provides a bullet-pointed plain-language summary of what the user can do with this licensed content. From there, they can access the full legal code of the licence, if they would like to learn more and in detail.
  • CC material is easy to find ensuring greater visibility and more collaborations. Google and a number of other search engines currently allow people to search specifically for CC-licensed material, as does the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Also, many content sharing platforms (such as Flickr and Vimeo) allow users to search or organise content based on CC licence terms. This means that if someone wants to find, reuse and remix artworks in relation to the selected traditions of the ECHO II project, your artwork(s) might be among the first to be found and gain visibility. By gaining visibility, your chances to become known and attract more collaborations and funding are increased.

By accepting the open access policy of the ECHO II project, you also accept the reasons why we decided to digitise your artworks and publish them on the digital exhibition under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. This means that you are a socially responsible artist.

CC licenses cannot be revoked. As soon as a copyrighted artwork and/or its digital copy is published under a CC license, it is and will remain open forever. A CC license can be changed only when a cultural work is significantly revised and altered (for example, in the case of a revised edition of a book). But the initial licence of the initial work, as well as any reuses based on this initial licence will remain valid. The inspirers of CC licenses incorporated this provision into their legal deeds, to ensure the openness of cultural works for the further advancement of knowledge and culture, and consequently, the further development of the economy and the well-being of the society. By applying CC licenses to your cultural works, you not only increase the chances of their becoming more visible and popular, but you also contribute to the open movement, its vision, mission and goals.

We can’t fully control reuses and remixes of the content once it is published online, whether it is CC-licensed or not. In any case, We will raise awareness on good practises in relation to reuses and remixes of CC-licensed cultural content, by organising GLAM Hack workshops and other events in the context of the project and beyond.

Applications

If you wish to participate in the Smolyan art residency, please fill in this application form (to which you have to attach a short bio and portfolio) until the 31st of July 2021.

We will complete the selection process until the 10th of August 2021. And we will notify all applicants on the results via email.

We will select the participant artists based on:

  • The type, the conception and the identity of the artists’ previous artworks (portfolio or/and online hyperlinks);
  • The reasons that motivate you to participate in the residency.

COVID-19 Update

We monitor the situation closely, and we will take all the necessary measures to protect the participating artists, the staff members and the local communities against the spread of COVID-19. In case we need to postpone the art residency and organise it on different dates, we will timely notify the selected artists on all the necessary changes. In case you are selected, but can’t participate in this final residency of the project due to the change of dates or other reasons, we will have to replace you with another shortlisted applicant.

More Information

For more information on the ECHO II project, you can contact:

For more information on the digitisation of the artworks and the open access policy of ECHO II, you can contact Revekka Kefalea.

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