Call for Curators #N15
The call for curators of NARRACJE 2024 is now open
The City Culture Institute and Gdańsk City Gallery invite curators and curatorial collectives from Poland and beyond to the open call for the curatorial concept of NARRACJE #15. In November 2024 artistic events and interventions in the urban space will help us rediscover Gdańsk’s Niedźwiednik estate. The deadline for sending curatorial concept proposals is 31 July 2023, the results will be announced till 31 August 2023 the latest.
NARRACJE is a contemporary art festival taking place in Gdańsk’s public space. Curated artworks use various tools to remain closely connected with the space, navigating viewers around this urban adventure. They provoke, intervene and remove subsequent layers of the everyday to reveal hidden meanings. Each year, NARRACJE takes place in the autumn, each time in a different district, which serves as the point of departure and inspiration.
About NARRACJE festival
Throughout the last decade, the festival’s profile has changed. Spectacular light installations from the first editions gave way to forms that critically analyse the space, enabling a closer dialogue with it. Over the years, NARRACJE has made itself at home in the city, which lends its stories to the festival, suggesting aspects to consider and pointing to solutions.
The event’s strength lies in the respect with which its creators approach the living organism of the city and their sense of how to work with space and its residents. Conscious of the temptations and dangers, both curators and artists ensure that works created for specific locations do not stigmatize the visited districts or objectify their residents.
Projects presented during NARRACJE are created in various techniques, spanning audiovisual, light, interactive, performative and film works. A substantial percentage are site-specific works created specially for the festival.
The programme of previous editions of NARRACJE is available in the Archive section of the website.
NARRACJE #15 will take place in Gdańsk’s Niedźwiednik estate
Niedźwiednik – an estate forming part of Brętowo district – stretches high above Gdańsk, on moraine hills north of Słowackiego Street. The entire quarter occupies an area of 7.23 sq km and has 7529 inhabitants with a density of 1041 persons per sq km. Located in the north of Brętowo, Niedźwiednik is a part of the district where residential architecture prevails, both the multi-family and single-family types. It is also the seat of the Brętowo District Council and a branch of the Voivodeship and City Public Library in Gdańsk. The estate features several interestingly located and well-equipped playgrounds.
The origins of Niedźwiednik date back to the 13th century, but before the 1970s, it did not function as the densely developed estate that is so familiar to residents of Gdańsk today. Niedźwiednik is located around 3 km northwest of the centre of Wrzeszcz. After World War II, Brętowo lost its previous industrial character due to the developing single-family architecture and the emergence of the multi-family Niedźwiednik estate between 1978 and 1983. Against the background of Gdańsk’s other large estates, such as Przymorze, Zaspa, Żabianka or Morena, Niedźwiednik clearly stands out, mostly due to its architectural qualities: an estate built on moraine hills and surrounded by the Tricity Landscape Park. At the time, the apartments designed there were in the so-called upper residential standard, meaning they were around 10 sq m larger than in other residential estates in Gdańsk. Niedźwiednik still enjoys a good reputation among Gdańsk locals and is regarded as a good place to live, although it is experiencing depopulation like the whole of Brętowo.
Fragment of a study of the Gdańsk’s Niedźwiednik estate prepared by Dorota Kucharczyk – CLICK TO DOWNLOAD.
Open call for curators – most important information
The open call lasts between 31 May and 31 July 2023. The results will be announced till 31 August 2023. Detailed Rules of procedure of the International contest on curator of 14th edition of Festival NARRACJE can be DOWNLOADED HERE (CLICK).
Applications should contain:
• letter of intent stating your motivation for taking part in the open call;
• outline of the festival concept, referring to the specific nature of the estate hosting the event;
• list of artists you would like to invite to participate with a short description of their realized or planned projects or actions in public space that would form part of the NARRACJE #15 programme, together with photographs or visualizations (refers to existing works);
• preliminary budget of the event;
• signed statement regarding grant of license and consents for processing personal data IKM competition for curator of NARRACJE (CLICK TO DOWNLOAD);
• your updated CV containing information about your professional experience and education, festivals and other art projects you’ve completed.
Organized by the City Culture Institute | Co-organized by Gdańsk City Gallery
