UNIDEE Residency Modules: NEITHER ON LAND NOR AT SEA - Module VI - Spring 2024 | open call & selected residents

UNIDEE Residency Programs and Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto are pleased to announce an open call for participation in the sixth module of the residency programme Neither on Land nor at Sea. Meeting by the Mediterranean Im/Possible, initiated curated by UNIDEE Visiting Curator Chiara Cartuccia.

Module VI, Spring 2024 is co-curated with invited mentors HUNITI GOLDOX.

Neither on Land nor at Sea invites to meander around unreducible complications and on shifting grounds, to explore together ways in which geography is historically, socially, and politically produced. The project pluralises Mediterranean concepts/spaces as sites of worldmaking and experimentation in communal living. To do so, it adopts un-grounded geographies and colliding historicities as meeting places, in which to congregate to elaborate on the role played by situated practices and shared processes in the promotion of social transformations, towards epistemic justice.

The UNIDEE modules are programme-based, short-residency formats. Participating residents will be offered the opportunity to expand on their ongoing research and practice exploring Mediterranean complexities and geographical thinking in the arts and beyond, within a group of peers and invited guests. The modules are interlinked, and each contributes to shaping the discourse developed by the project as a whole.

For more information about the curatorial framework, context and scopes of the project, please visit Neither on Land nor at Sea website here.

With the title The Rise and Fall of Water, Module VI – Spring 2024 will take place from 9 to 15 April, and it is co-curated with invited mentors HUNITI GOLDOX.

Led by artist duo HUNITI GOLDOX (Areej Huniti & Eliza Goldox), Module VI – Spring 2024, The Rise and Fall of Water, contemplates the intersectionality of lines – infrastructures that impose certain interpretations of the world while rendering others invisible. In 2023, the duo began researching ancient timekeeping devices reliant on the fall of water, like the water clock, which works by measuring time through the fall of water. The project critically engages with colonial perspectives examining how territorial dominance manifests through human-made structures like time zones, dammed rivers, and aridity lines. It provokes reflection on scientific and indigenous forms of knowledge, as well as the fates of immeasurable objects, subjects, and relations within the natural world.

Participants in Module VI of Neither on Land nor at Sea will engage in re-enactments of the water clock, as they are invited to explore narratives crafted by intertwined entities of water, stones, trees, and birds. This frame facilitates a shift towards an elastic territory that transcends traditional temporal confines. Through it, the module seeks to contemplate diverse methods of world-building that prioritise the interconnectedness of elemental forces, diverging from the dominant doctrines of industrialisation and accumulation.

An extended version of the module’s conceptual frame is available here.

The residency programme’s working language is English.

We aim to invite a group of up to 10 residents to take part in the module. The programme is open to international participants of all backgrounds, whose practice sits anywhere across the broad spectrum of visual practice and research, with no restriction regarding disciplines, media or methodologies of work. Applications from artists, curators, writers, theorists, activists, all are welcome and encouraged.

The selection of participants will be based on the affinity of the subject matters, concerns and questions participating in the applicant’s work with those expressed by the curatorial framework of the project and the conceptual positioning of the selected residency module, as well as on the applicant interest and ability to contribute to a programme-based residency whose working is grounded in processes of active exchange and participation.   

The residency modules will take place at Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto, in Biella, Italy. The UNIDEE and Cittadellarte spaces will host a large part of the programme, while further opportunities for exploring the urban and rural landscape of Biella and its immediate surroundings will be offered.

Participants will be accommodated within the premises of Cittadellarte, in single rooms with the use of shared bathrooms. The residential spaces offer basic cooking facilities and communal resting areas.

Participants are expected to arrive on the afternoon of April 8, and to depart by the afternoon of April 16.
We are committed to meeting to the best of our ability any accessibility requirements an attendee may have; this will be discussed individually with prospective residents.

Further information regarding practicalities and FAQ available here.

Participation in the Spring module is offered free of charge, and the residents will be provided with free accommodation at Cittadellarte. However, residents will be required to arrange and cover expenses for their travel to/from Biella and for the food/living costs whilst in Cittadellarte.

A limited number of partial and full travel bursaries are made available to those who would not otherwise be able to participate; please remember to state in your application whether you would like to be considered for this opportunity.

The team at UNIDEE remains at your disposal to support you in the travel arrangements and in the visa application process. Additionally, the team will provide you with any documents you may need should you decide to pursue other funding opportunities through your local art councils or via international platforms / funding bodies.

To apply please fill in the form at this link: https://form.jotform.com/240432268695361

Deadline for submissions is 8 March 2024, 23:59 (CET).

HUNITI GOLDOX is an artist duo composed by Areej Huniti and Eliza Goldox. The practice of HUNITI GOLDOX explores how political systems, transitions and violence are affecting water bodies and landscapes. Through contextual examinations of geopolitical realities, marginalised oral histories and mythologies they create films, videos, VR-works, installations, conversations, texts, in addition to formats that can involve different voices and beings, such as workshops, excursions and interventions. This stems from the desire to create moments for collective imagining and re-imagining to collapse dominant narratives and fixed geographies. More specifically they engage with the notion of enforced mutation as a way to attend to present social and ecological struggles while demanding speculative answers to confront systematic oppression. They started this with a project on the buried water stream in the centre of Amman/ Jordan then they extended to the swamp lands and mediterranean coast of Tunis/ Tunisia, the artificial lake land of Leipzig, the urban development projects around Tirana River and the Vistula River in Poland.

Their work was exhibited at the Institute for Postnatural Studies, Madrid (2023); Hauser & Wirth, Menorca (2023); TBA Academy/ Ocean Uni, Madrid (2022); Tirana Art Lab, Tirana (2022); D21, Leipzig (2021); Sheffield Film Festival, Sheffield (2021); School Of Waters/ Biennale Mediterranea, San Marino (2021); SomoS Art House, Berlin (2020); SPARC* Spazio Arte Contemporanea, Venice (2020); Darat al Funun, Amman (2019); MMAG Foundation, Amman (2019), The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman (2019) among others..

UNIDEE Residency Programs is made possible thanks to the support of Regione Piemonte, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, CRT Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino, illycaffè S.p.A., Fondazione Zegna, European Union’s Creative Europe programme, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Institut Français Italy, Kimonos Art Center.