18 Aug 2015

UNIDEE - University of Ideas : Upcoming Deadlines This Fall

UNIDEE at Cittadellarte has changed. After 14 years as a residency programme, and a transitional 15th edition questioning the relevance of traditional residency schemes while testing out a new format, UNIDEE has evolved into a multifaceted platform, with a new educational programme based on interdisciplinary research, knowledge sharing and experience exchange, alongside a series of artists' residency projects.

UNIDEE - University of Ideas offers an educational artistic programme of weekly residential modules taking place both at Cittadellarte. An alternative to the traditional educational system, it works in synergy with international academies and public universities. It fosters processes of cross-pollination to investigate the relationship between art and public sphere, focusing on topics like social responsibility, urban transformation, participatory art practices, demopraxy, alternative models of local economic development, sustainability, etc.

Designed for artists, curators, students, social entrepreneurs, cultural project managers, etc., UNIDEE - University of Ideas' modules put forward a participatory learning experience in a small group setting, through practices, methodologies and tools apt at forging knowledge while fostering relational skills, socially responsible behaviours that value diversity, 'effective' horizontal thought processes, and the possibility to 'err', on a quest for new means of expression.

The programme is conceived as a long term endeavour with the mission to be engaging continuously with civil society not only through dialogue and active participation, but also through the (re)localisation of those processes of symbolic identification on the side of the modules' and residencies' participants, in Biella as well as in their own original social contexts and groups.

THIS YEAR:

This year's programme for UNIDEE – University of Ideas (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee), developed by Cecilia Guida in collaboration with Juan Esteban Sandoval, under the general direction of Paolo Naldini, focuses on three broad concepts: temporality, responsibility, participation. Analysed from a variety of angles (artistic, historical, geographic, philosophical, political, economic, anthropological, sociological, mediological, juridical, architectural, etc.), these three key topics will be unravelled together by participants, mentors and guests, through an exciting blend of formats spanning from the theoretical to the performative. The modules will encompass experiments in art history paradigms, activism, commons, prefigurative politics, territorial transformation, museology, visual narratives, social imagery, relational systems, new rituals, social cooking, urban space exploration, ideas gathering (etc.).

The programme kicked off in May with a successful first Spring term, seeing the participation - over its first 8 modules - of 44 residents representing 16 nationalities, and coming from as far as Azerbaijan, the US and New Zealand. Our alumni are visual and performance artists, photographers, curators, architects, critics, anthropologists, museum professionals, musicians, and more. Some of them are exceptionally gifted students currently completing their BA or Ma degrees, others are researching for a PhD, while many are well established professionals.

During its first months of activities, UNIDEE – University of Ideas has developed several educational collaborations & scholarships, with: Università degli Studi di Torino; Polo Universitario di Biella e Novara; Politecnico di Milano; Università IUAV, Venezia; Ars Academy, Milano; Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milano; Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino; Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma; Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze; Università La Sorbonne di Parigi/ Dipartimento del Centre d'Etudes sur l'Actuel et le Quotidien – CEAQ (FR); Ecole supérieure d'art et design – ESAD, Grenoble (FR); École cantonale d'art du Valais – ECAV, Sierre (CH); University of Dundee – Visual Research Centre, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, DJCA (UK); Stipendium for Depth Development Artistic Practice, Mondriaan Fund (NL).

UPCOMING DEADLINES THIS FALL:

21.09-25.09.2015 (Alessandra Donati with SMart-Belgium/Italy)
Law and artistic creation (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=18) discusses recent international cases highlighting disputes around copyright, authenticity, originality, moral rights, public art, participation, etc. It also focuses on the analysis of different contract models, accompanying participants in drafting their own.
Deadline: 23.08.2015 (in Italian)

28.09-02.10.2015 (raumlaborberlin)
Through an exploration of Cittadellarte's surroundings, Terrain vague (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=19) aims to realize 1:1 objects, designed and built out of timber by small teams of participants. A series of small architectural interventions will be carried out in the city, to create atmospheres of communication and exchange or intrusions into a situation of settled habits.
Deadline: 28.08.2015 *To attend this module, you can apply for the special illycaffè grant & prize! (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/opencallpartners.html)

5.10-9.10. 2015 (Beatrice Catanzaro)
Why do I do what I do? (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=20) aims to unfold the participants' understanding of their own practice, attempting to define a survival kit for a truly engaging participatory art practice. It explores notions of empathy, active listening and imaginative processes and addresses inter-subjectivity as constructed narrative and the quintessential humankind's imaginative capacity.
Deadline: 05.09.2015 *To attend this module, you can apply for the special illycaffè grant & prize! (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/opencallpartners.html)

12.10-16.10.2015 (Ana Dzokic & Marc Neelen, STEALTH.unlimited)
Where imagination slips into reality (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=21) explores practices of urban transformation - not necessarily artistic ones – changing our dwellings. They will be analysed in their social, political and practical aspects, in order to re-imagine the future of contemporary cities in a responsible and socially engaged way.
Deadline: 12.09.2015 *To attend this module, you can apply for the special illycaffè grant & prize! (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/opencallpartners.html)

19.10-23.10.2015 (Santiago Reyes Villaveces with Manuel Ángel Macia)
Approaching editorial and graphic production processes from a practical and theoretical angle, Photocopy tales: Publications and visual essay (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=22) addresses the development of experimental visual narratives, editorial processes and the means of production and circulation of publications, focusing on the possibilities of image production and reproduction offered by photocopying.
Deadline: 19.09.2015 *To attend this module, you can apply for the special illycaffè grant & prize! (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/opencallpartners.html)

26.10-30.10.2015 (Andrea Caretto & Raffaella Spagna with Attila Faravelli)
Matter as Experience (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=23) proposes a series of immersive and shared experiences and individual actions reflecting upon processes of growth, erosion and trasformation of matter at different levels, and upon the interactions between these processes and human beings, in their subjective, social and political dimensions.
Deadline: 26.09.2015

09.11-13.11.2015 (Federica Martini with Anne-Julie Raccoursier)
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear: contemporary art histories and other news (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=16) investigates the writing of art histories in contemporary artistic research practices, the notions of responsibility and collective authorship and our relationship to archives, documents, artworks and oral histories produced by art scenes.
Deadline: 08.10.2015

16.11-20.11.2015 (Monica Narula, Raqs Media Collective with Rasmus Nielsen, Superflex)
Deploying a methodology inspired by a folk tale, Recipe for Stone Soup: How to Let Time Cook Us All Precedures for Conversational Practice in Contemporary Art (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=26) devises, through collective action, a set of procedures for the making of an art work/situation while directly addressing the questions of temporality, responsibility and participation.
Deadline: 16.10.2015

23.11-27.11.2015 (Omer Krieger)
Performative situations in public space: The research and action group (www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/activity.html?id=27) aims at forming and training an action group. Reading and analysing public choreography, the performance of the state, modes of civic behaviour, performances of power, order and danger, through the observation of existing groups, it will generate a public ceremony.
Deadline: 23.10.2015


UNIDEE – University of Ideas is made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione Zegna, illycaffè S.p.A., Fondo Edo Tempia.
Students are entitled to a discounted fee. For further details contact: unidee@cittadellarte.it

UNIDEE - University of Ideas
Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto Onlus
Via G. B. Serralunga 27
13900 Biella
ITALY

APPLY ONLINE AT: www.cittadellarte.it/unidee
contact: unidee@cittadellarte.it
Programme Director and Curator: Cecilia Guida
Programme Coordinator: Elisa Tosoni
Assistant to the Director: Giulia Crisci
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