about artecitya
"Artecitya. Envisioning the City of Tomorrow" (2014-2018) is a collaboration between 9 partners from around Europe. The project brings together artists, architects, town planners and citizens to re-create the cities we want to live in. The priority is to stimulate a vigorously innovative approach to the concept of urban life taking into account the sociological evolution and people's needs.
ARTECITYA by GOETHE-INSTITUT thessaloniki
Bringing together the talent of the artist, the creativity of the entrepreneur, the vision of the investor and of the local authorities.
Artecitya Thessaloniki by Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki, in collaboration with ArtBOX | Creative Arts Management, is an Artistic Creative AGENCY. It aims at reinventing the city's image and changing the ways in which the city is experienced by its inhabitants, visitors and people world-wide. Creators who participate in a series of specially designed programmes propose solutions and build prototypes towards the realisation of this goal. The AGENCY builds bridges between critical and artistic projects, communities and groups of Thessaloniki, local agents (business, art and culture institutions, local authorities etc.) and an active network of national and international cultural actors.
ARTECITYA kick-off meeting at Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki (29-30 January 2015) / photo: Ingo Duennebier
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Art after 1960 has pushed the limits of its own media but also of the places and contexts in which art is produced and received. Institutional critique and public art redefined the relationship between the presentation context of art and its audiences. New genres such as performance, installation art, interventionist actions, appropriation art, relational aesthetics engage with the expansion and transformation of the format of the exhibition. They constitute historical benchmarks of how to show art outside the museum. They also reexamine both the notion of the public sphere as well as the social impact of art.
THE AGENCY
INVENTOR OF WORK / CREATIVITY HUB / BEST PRACTICE MODEL
Drawing on the term ‘agency’, that is, an individual’s or an entity’s capacity to engage with the world and act within it, the AGENCY of Artecitya Thessaloniki becomes a trigger, a springboard and an emancipator that explores potentials, problematics and politics that lie behind the making of a culturally dynamic city.
an INVENTOR OF WORK
The AGENCY designs and promotes various projects that bring together the creative force of artists/creators, local communities and social entrepreneurship. In this sense, the AGENCY functions as a work-in-progress model that brings to the fore the city’s creative potentials. It proposes novel and diversified models of envisioning the city, through innovative products and services as well as through sharing of education and expertise. The AGENCY creates experimental sites that empower young creatives to imagine work and redefine market economy in local contexts. In this regard it aims at establishing novel best practice models. By bringing together artists/creative agents with the market dynamics of social entrepreneurship and creative economy, it creates tools for addressing the needs of economy today. The AGENCY brings together the talent of the artist, the creativity of an entrepreneur and the vision of the investor, while forming creative partnerships.
a CREATIVITY HUB
At the same time, the AGENCY becomes the effective centre for various contemporary forms of curatorial and artistic activity in the expanded public sphere. It supports the mobility of critics, experts, researchers and cultural workers, who participate in workshops, conferences and in a specially designed residency-program aiming at implementing the project’s goals. The AGENCY commissions socially engaged art projects in bringing together communities, authorities, patrons and makers. In this regard, it focuses on contemporary art’s social engagement: It foregrounds social issues and enables political activism and education, while empowering the transformative imagination of the city’s inhabitants.
a BEST-PRACTICE MODEL
Ultimately, the AGENCY acquires the function of a “Chinese pharmacy," which prepares the "ingredients" of a "remedy," specific for individual needs. The AGENCY promotes novel ways of community consultancy and empowerment of groups and individuals, offering them specific tools and know-how tactics to transform their every-day realities. We interact in society through decision-making processes and we engage with the fragmented public sphere. With the assistance of creative cultural actors, the AGENCY prepares and dispenses proposals for long-lasting and sustainable solutions to the problems of the city's inhabitants and its social needs. The artistic ingenuity and innovation becomes a lever that consolidates the informal and unsolicited relationship with art. This takes place through our daily relationship with the city.
The AGENCY is in itself a creative project that wants to set standards for good practice both in the field of "art for social change" as well as in the domain of contemporary city branding. It promotes the activities of all contributing partners, establishes a continuous networking and secures the sustainability and longevity of the project’s goals, even after the end of the project in 2018.
The AGENCY designs and promotes various projects that bring together the creative force of artists/creators, local communities and social entrepreneurship. In this sense, the AGENCY functions as a work-in-progress model that brings to the fore the city’s creative potentials. It proposes novel and diversified models of envisioning the city, through innovative products and services as well as through sharing of education and expertise. The AGENCY creates experimental sites that empower young creatives to imagine work and redefine market economy in local contexts. In this regard it aims at establishing novel best practice models. By bringing together artists/creative agents with the market dynamics of social entrepreneurship and creative economy, it creates tools for addressing the needs of economy today. The AGENCY brings together the talent of the artist, the creativity of an entrepreneur and the vision of the investor, while forming creative partnerships.
a CREATIVITY HUB
At the same time, the AGENCY becomes the effective centre for various contemporary forms of curatorial and artistic activity in the expanded public sphere. It supports the mobility of critics, experts, researchers and cultural workers, who participate in workshops, conferences and in a specially designed residency-program aiming at implementing the project’s goals. The AGENCY commissions socially engaged art projects in bringing together communities, authorities, patrons and makers. In this regard, it focuses on contemporary art’s social engagement: It foregrounds social issues and enables political activism and education, while empowering the transformative imagination of the city’s inhabitants.
a BEST-PRACTICE MODEL
Ultimately, the AGENCY acquires the function of a “Chinese pharmacy," which prepares the "ingredients" of a "remedy," specific for individual needs. The AGENCY promotes novel ways of community consultancy and empowerment of groups and individuals, offering them specific tools and know-how tactics to transform their every-day realities. We interact in society through decision-making processes and we engage with the fragmented public sphere. With the assistance of creative cultural actors, the AGENCY prepares and dispenses proposals for long-lasting and sustainable solutions to the problems of the city's inhabitants and its social needs. The artistic ingenuity and innovation becomes a lever that consolidates the informal and unsolicited relationship with art. This takes place through our daily relationship with the city.
The AGENCY is in itself a creative project that wants to set standards for good practice both in the field of "art for social change" as well as in the domain of contemporary city branding. It promotes the activities of all contributing partners, establishes a continuous networking and secures the sustainability and longevity of the project’s goals, even after the end of the project in 2018.
Programme overview
AGENCY, 2015 - 2018 |
Exhibition, 2018 |
|
Throughout 2015, the Artecitya Agency will be established and developed. Based at Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and active all over the city, the Agency will be the "heart" of the project, functioning as creative incubator, curatorial organiser, production-manager and information disseminator.
|
An exhibition in Thessaloniki (2018) will recapitulate the Agency’s activities since the beginning of the project. Artecitya GR will also be presented in the major exhibition that will present the entire ARTECITYA network in Strasbourg.
|
residencies, 2016-2017The conception and implementation of a series of 6 residencies, involving directly and indirectly international artists, curators and experts. The residencies will address following issues: Lived Architecture, City Branding, Creative Cluster, Oral Histories, Sustainable Tourism, International Networking, Envisioning the Future. Residency participants will be selected by invitation and through an international call for proposals, out of which the most relevant and implementable projects will be selected on the basis of terms of reference closely defined by all partners.
Conference, april 2017A two days’ Conference, organised in collaboration with Artecitya’s Berlin partner, ZKU - KunstRepublik. The conference “Work as Invention. Art for Social Change” will focus both on case-studies as well as on related scholarly debates. Various academics, educators, artists, political actors, as well as practitioners from various fields are invited to offer proposals for building alternative models of work and art. The specific approach and the list of speakers will be decided based on the preparatory research that will take place throughout 2015 and 2016.
|
Publication, 2018The publication and international dissemination of works on the theoretical and historical aspects of art for social change, its application via the various actions carried out by Artecitya's network, the results of the project's research and methods.
Dissemination / internet platformThroughout the project, information will be conveyed to thousands of people via the Artecitya internet platform (e.g. artists' interventions, citizens' reactions, expert reports, European programming, etc.). The entire network’s activities will also be promoted through a series of web documentaries, produced by ARTE Creative, while ARTECITYA GR will closely collaborate with local media to communicate its activities.
Research trips & NetworkingThroughout the project, a series of research trips & networking activities will take place, in order to investigate relevant initiatives and good practices (New York, London, Paris, Berlin and other German cities and elsewhere).
|
