Art Space Unlimited

ended

The project Art Space Unlimited is a collaboration among 5 institutions in Europe (Prague, Graz, Budapest, Prishtina, Barcelona), which builds on their experience of socially engaged institutions involved with various participative artistic and curatorial initiatives. The project departs from these institutions’ long-term close collaboration with socially engaged, participative, and experimental curatorial and artistic strategies. These institutions work with artists and curators who involve in their project very diverse audiences, often without an access to institutionalized contemporary art. The project believes such projects require an institution with specific capacities, skills and strategies for such undertakings to have a long-lasting impact. The aim of the project is to build know-how and capacities to build adequate institutional support. Across 18 months, the consortium will engage in 4 cooperative workshops and one common residency to collaborate on the development of innovative strategies of socially inclusive audience development and practically implement them by means of 15 community mediation events. These events are focused to meet the specific needs of under-privileged communities (Roma communities, people with experience of homelessness, the unemployed, youth with migrant background). They will be equally spread across all the five countries and will be based on novel ways of engagement of the audience with contemporary art and its creators. Furthermore, through 4 seminars and a manual published in six languages, the consortium will spread the acquired knowledge among the professional public in various contexts. The project will support the efforts of these institutions to become spaces relevant for an audience with no access to institutionalized contemporary art. The project responds to the challenge of how mid-scale art institutions could transform to increase their relevance and be more welcoming to such citizens.