Easttopics East Talks and Curatorial Residency call

Easttopics announces an online conference/programme of talks (1-3 October) on the Central and Eastern Europe contemporary art worlds, as well as a call for the East Curatorial Residency taking place online and focused on the Hungarian and Slovakian art scenes.

The Easttopics East Talks online program offers you the possibility to participate in courses, lectures and discussions focusing on the CEE contemporary art world with flexibility, wherever you are based. Composed of presentations by curators, artists and researchers, the second Easttopics East Talks program aims to investigate the very current topic of Art and Future. The Art and Future conference is open to all individuals around the world.

Video conferences are scheduled from 10am to 5pm CET. Recordings will be available after each day in case you miss a live session. The live video conferences will run on Zoom with live captioning available.

• Dates: 1-3 October
• Application deadline:  27 September
• Application form  
• Fee: 200 EUR

The East Call Curatorial Residency offers a unique opportunity for emerging curators to gain a comprehensive insight in the Hungarian and Slovakian contemporary art scene by examining its characteristics and understanding them in a broader, regional context.

• Period: 2 Nov - 16 Nov 2021
• Length: 2 weeks
• Location: online
• Application deadline: 4 October 2021
• Participation fee: 800 EUROS

East Call is an intensive 2-week program that focuses on the status and practice of artists, contemporary curatorial conditions, institutional situations and the understanding of issues affecting contemporary art, with a focus on the roles and responsibilities of curators as mediators between audiences and artists, and researchers as theoretical transmitters of knowledge, interpretation and contextualization. 

East Call aims to foster dialogues on issues surrounding curation and to interrogate what constitutes “the curatorial” in the Central Eastern European region. The East Call program focuses on open, horizontal and conversation-based transfers of knowledge and experience.

The program is designed for emerging curators and curators-to-be still involved in their studies who expect to work in the field of contemporary art. It intends to introduce participants to current and relevant practices as well as to the mechanisms of curating in relation to exhibitions, institutions, audiences, aesthetics and cultural political discourse.

Throughout the two weeks, participants intensively expand their professional knowledge and practice by conducting in-depth investigations of contemporary exhibitions, getting introduced to case studies of leading curators and their engagements, taking part in curatorial workshops, visiting artist’s studio, and exchanging, discussing with each other during the online meetings. By sharing the experiential and theoretical best practices of leading contemporary art museums, galleries, the program offers to the participants a unique chance to develop project ideas, conduct research of their particular interests, enrich connections and networks internationally as well as elaborate discussions with contemporary art professionals active in Budapest and Bratislava. The residency aims to conclude with the conception of a publication, the curation of an exhibition or the presentation of a lecture in the form of a case-study.

The course will include virtual gallery and museum visits, covering a range of curatorial models, where you will meet and have the opportunity to speak with professionals in the field. It also includes an online guest lectures from established curators and artists. 

Easttopics also provides a budget for a project developed in the frame of and as a result of the residency program.