Waterfront Open Call for Art Projects
The Street Art Research Institute and the Danish Cultural Institute in Saint Petersburg are happy to announce an open call for art projects.
The goal of the project is to attract (through urban-oriented art practices and public art ) the active attention of citizens to the problem of using embankments and the development of urban coastal areas as modern public spaces.
Open Call terms: June 16 July 15, 2020 (acceptance of applications ends at 15.07.2020 at 23: 59 Moscow time).
Implementation: August 2020 — July 2021 (depends on the epidemiological situation).
Who can apply: individual authors and / or creative groups working with different forms of artistic practices*.
Participants'geography: North-Western region of the Russian Federation (Saint Petersburg, Leningrad, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk regions, Republic of Karelia). We also welcome representatives of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden).
NB! Applications from other regions can be accepted if at least one of the team members is representative of the North-West of the Russian Federation or a Northern Country.
Implementation: at one of the locations by the water side in St. Petersburg. We also accept online projects that can later be implemented offline, i.e. in the urban space.
Production budget: up to 80 thousand Rubles per project.
The winners will be invited to participate in a group study trip of the Waterfront project to Finland, Sweden and Estonia (the travel period will be specified later).
Selection process:
the organizers expect to select from three to five projects for implementation; the selection will be made by the organizing Committee, consisting of the Waterfront project team, which includes experts in the field of urbanism, architecture, art history, sociology, ecology, art management, consultants for the development of public spaces, as well as of active participants in the previous stages of the project.

What kind of projects do we expect? In order to facilitate the tasks of applicants, we offer several specific areas (nominations), so the applicants can choose one or more of them:
1. Universal design solution (replicable and scalable) that solves a specific task: to mark the location of a city either lost or existing boat station or recreation areas near the water. The information pointer method must be original in terms of idea and design; it must be visible, identifiable, vandal-resistant, and informative.

Context:
The modern city grows out of history and its traditions, as the city is a few generations of residents who have lived a whole life and remember the realities of their time, which they treat as a value. Moreover, young people, as a rule, do not know much about the everyday history and practice of city life in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and even in the 70s and 80s. Meanwhile, in this Soviet time, the municipality and city services were similarly puzzled by the organization of leisure and recreation places for citizens, where they could relax after working days among the wildlife, without going far beyond the city limits. Sports and outdoor activities were also among the priorities. One of the opportunities for a pleasant and useful weekend in the maritime city were, of course, the water walks. For this purpose, boat stations were created on rivers, channels and lakes with a fleet of oar boats and the possibility of their hourly rental. This tradition was seriously damaged in the post-Soviet period. That is why the organizers chose former and currently operating boat stations as possible locations for public art objects. Temporary objects can become new points of attraction for both local residents and tourists.

2. Local art intervention "in the area" in the format of "improvising", tied to a specific place and solving a specific problem of the selected space (at the discretion of the author).

Context:
Modern street art is puzzled not only by the author's personal self-expression, but also by social projects that analyze disadvantages and inconveniences for residents of the neighborhood, developing necessary and precise interventions that allow to quickly solve the problem or at least identify it and move towards its possible solution with the help of local active residents or engineering district services. This is what we call "improvising".

3. Art projects that initiate social communication, that is, involve citizens in cooperation and dialogue with each other in order to "inhabit" public spaces near the water.

Context:
Residents of St. Petersburg are usually described as people who are not particularly open and do not tend to communicate with strangers. However, only a friendly local community is able to take responsibility to promptly raise and solve the problems of the neighborhood. In order to organize and launch such an activity, there are various social mechanisms. We offer to develop and test them in practice.


A list of possible locations for which Waterfront conducted research and for which it is possible to obtain (the organizers will provide on request) an overview of analytical information:
  • Chernaya Rechka River ( between the Chernorechenskiy bridge and Starobelskaya street);
  • Zhdanovka River (near the SKA stadium on Zhdanovskaya embankment, 2; opposite to Petrovsky Park);
  • Smolenka River (near the cemetery "Island of Decembrists", at the beginning of Kim Avenue)
  • Primorsky Victory Park
  • Yuzhno-Primorskiy Park
  • Sosnovka Park
  • Pryazhka River (there is no specific place on the river) - there is a study by the Waterfront team
  • Embankment in the Southwest of the city (the so-called Stone beach) - there is a study of the Waterfront team
  • Galernaya Harbour - there is a study by the Waterfront team
Participants can choose the location by their own.
APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
The project format can be anything that can be implemented in an open urban space (on a temporary basis, if it is an object), taking into account the conditions and challenges that we have faced in 2019 / 2020:
  • pandemic
  • the difficulty of negotiation of stationary art objects in an urban environment
  • search for new forms of communication in the period of isolation
The application must contain:
  • applicant's profile / cv
  • description of the idea / concept
  • visualization / sketch (if it is an object)
  • short script (if it is a performative art)
  • location (if it means a specific place in the city)
  • detailed estimates and technical rider
File format support: pdf, doc, jpeg; links to video in youtube or vimeo

How to apply: send an email to waterfront.tools@gmail.com
Application submission ends on July 15, 2020 at 23: 59 Moscow time.

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