WHAT IS AROUNDLESS
Aroundless - Art Residency 2015
MeetingInZdonov reopened its doors to artists in residence in July 2015 with the new challenging International art residency Aroundless. Heart of the project is again the large rural house that after a long process of restructuring, offers reception areas and workareas for workshops and lectures. The project is constantly changing, and this year its shape will be given by a diverse community that is connected to a larger and varied network. 2015: MeetingInZdonov hosts ca 10 young and just graduated artists to research and create during a 4 week long residency between 10 July and 9 August including intensive coaching by experienced artists and curators and visits to other art activities in the region where many other artists are involved, and a seminar about art residencies.
Exploration of Borders
2015's theme is the frame, and thus the exploration of frame from a physical, spatial, geographic, artistic, political point of view. Selected artists, Art professionals and over 10 art supporting volunteers have joined Aroundless with their creativity. The project allows a human and cultural aggregation that generates, in an inclusive way, a multitude of experiences, coming alive in the space and time coordinates given by the psychogeographical qualities of the house and the established time frame of one month. The research of the artists will be structured from within the indoor spaces and open up to the outdoor areas of the house, the natural environment that creates the border area that includes Zdoňov; the artists will find themselves working with progressive frames and borders which they will encounter, even across the border with Poland to Sokolowsko and Swidnica, where other artistic experiences await for them.
Step By Step
The initial phase of the project started already two weeks before the official opening of the residence with so many preparatory activities of construction to create a setting for the every day life and the workshops for the artists. The daily program includes lectures by experts, hours of research and building technical skills. Psychogeography, blurring borders from an architectural urban planning point of view, the relation between the neural system and movement, the functionality of art in daily life, the place and relation between artists , audience and society are a few of the topics which will be debated and researched. Specific assignments day by day will structure the process Leading to the realisation of art work for an exhibition that will travel through Europe. The final phase concerns the presentation of the works of the artists and a meeting-seminar on the future of the project in a network of artist residencies in rural areas in Europe.
Circular Frames’ Diagram
The residency lives thanks to two main elements: the space and the people inside it. The artistic research within the residency starts from the alchemy of these two elements. Aroundless is about the potentialities contained in the interaction of people among each other (young artists among them, artists with experts, volunteers with the participants) and between people and the space/spaces. The core of project is WHERE this interaction can take place: the house which, in its structural frame, hosts the interaction and its multiple outcomes.
Residence in this sense is, above all, an opportunity for coexistence and living together in a shared space, with shared rooms and a routine that requires a constant collaboration also for moments of conviviality, to enjoy lunches and dinners, including preparation. Thus The house is the first frame and - for all the temporary inhabitants - a first approach to the frames, the obstacles of different languages and nationalities, cultures and ages of the participants, and the relationship issues. The house is where artists will structure also their adaptment strategies in the spaces of the home, for survival and artistic purposes.
The house itself is set in a second circle: a rural environment of great richness, with its landscapes, its biodiversity and its materials from them, a complex natural and anthropological history. This geographic space is also located into a wider frame: Again also a border area, here a situation of isolation, with limited employment opportunities and far from the mainstream contemporary art scenery. An area that is struggling to survive, despite the great potential for tourism development.
The challenge that the residence launches is to stir the natural progression of these concentric circles, and test options, intersections, changes in perspective through Discovering, Researching, Reviewing, Recreating, re-discovering ideas and appreciations of borders, frames and restrictions.
Being in the Frame to Get Out of the Frame
Aroundless deals with the frame, the restriction, the border, psychogeography. Every work of art relates to its limitations: every work has a frame, a material wooden frame, a wall, room, a screen, physical and abstract limits, even a country border. Intensive research puts the artists in a challenging position “to push their search towards, into, and across (their own) borders and frames of perception while staying as close as possible to the abstract and material concept of border and frame”, says Stan Coenders. It includes philosophical and technical matters and perspectives. The artists have to reconsider their existing ideas, research in team and work solo in expression, coached by experienced artists. The result will be a collection of artwork about borders, frames and restrictions, ready to travel through europe.