Image courtesy – Serendipity Arts Foundation, Project – Emissions , part of Museum of Sounds in my Head. Artists – Varun Desai & Viraag Desai Curated by – Sneha Khanwalkar Image credit : Philippe Calia and Sunil Thakkar
About the opportunity
Transmitter is an international digital lab conducted by Serendipity Arts Foundation (India) and Darwin Festival (Australia), supported by the Australia Council for the Arts. The provocation is to interrogate the relationship between technology and the body and how this relationship might become a creative catalyst for performance in both virtual and physical spaces. Our engagement with the arts has shifted radically in the last year and opened up opportunities beyond the physical space of art-making, to use technology to interpret one’s practice and examine how we adapt ourselves in this hybrid space. We’re interested in investigating how artistic process and spatial relationships are informed by technology.
We’re inviting applications from emerging and mid-career artists who are interested in interdisciplinary practice and paradigm-shifting collaboration. The focus of this project is to extend networks beyond geographical boundaries through sharing of resources, artist-led pedagogy, peer exchange, research and engagement designed to enrich the artistic process and enable the potential for new projects to be seeded.
The program involves a 2.5 day online intensive in June featuring guest artists and presenters from both countries, followed by two artist-led sessions in July facilitated by the program curators where new project concepts will be workshopped, with the intention that these ideas be further developed for pitching in Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM) and potential presentation in 2022 either at Darwin Festival and/or Serendipity Arts Foundation.
The intended outcomes for the program are:
- connection between participants in Australia and India and a sharing of disciplines, and understanding of each other’s local contexts with a global view
- professional development opportunity to build skills working in an international and transdisciplinary context
- exploration of the potential for new technologies to extend artistic practice, including the potential facilitation of international artistic collaborations
- potential to present a work at either Darwin Festival and/or Serendipity Arts Foundation in 2022 (if of interest). The program does not come with a compulsion of generating a festival outcome
- developing methods of connecting internationally via digital platforms with a view to extending discourses on art-making.
Support
The Australia Council for the Arts will fund 4 successful artists $3000 AUD each, and support 2 applicants from India and 2 applicants from Australia (with one position identified for a Northern Territory based artist).
Who is this program for?
This program designed for artists who are:
- emerging or mid-career artists in India or Australia. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of either country, and can be based in any city
- interested in meaningful Asia engagement, critical discussion, and interdisciplinary work
- working across multiple disciplines with existing links between Australia and India who want to deepen these connections OR who have an interest in developing new relationships.
This lab will be focussed on process-based learning and collaboration. Participants will be asked to develop a proposal for a new work during the course of the program, which they will be able to pitch to presenters during APAM, Darwin Festival and Serendipity Arts Foundation.
Applications will be assessed based on the responses to the following questions (250 words max):
- How does your artistic practice engage with technology?
- What about the opportunity to participate in a international exchange with artists in India/Australia is interesting to you? How does this relate to or intersect with your current practice?
To be uploaded along with your written application.
- a copy of your CV (no more than two pages)
- a link to an example of your previous work.
Australia Council staff in consultation with Darwin Festival and Serendipity Arts Foundation will consider applications according to the assessment criteria above.
Program curators
Click on the ‘+’ to read the bio.
Erica McCalman
Erica McCalman
Erica McCalman is a creative producer, curator and consultant of Ballardong (Noongar), Irish convict, Scottish and Cornish heritage. With her independent project (Art Oracle) Erica has taught and mentored for YIRRAMBOI and Melbourne Fringe festivals as well as consulted for major arts institutions, independent artists and government agencies. Through Art Oracle Erica seeks to find new ways of working as a producer, developing healthy collaboration methods between artist and institution and nurturing the next generation of artists and producers.
Serendipity Arts Foundation
Serendipity Arts Foundation (SAF) is one of the largest multi-disciplinary arts initiatives in the South Asian region. It spans the visual, performing and culinary arts, whilst exploring genres with film, live arts, literature and fashion. Besides the core content, which is conceptualized by an eminent curatorial panel, the Foundation has various layers of programming, in the form of educational initiatives, workshops, special projects, and institutional engagements.