performingbordersLIVE20 Open Call for Digital Conversations

For 2020’s edition of performingbordersLIVE (March – November 2020), performingbordersLIVE and LADA invite proposals for two digital conversations by curators, artists, researchers, activists, thinkers and/or other professionals working in Live Art. Applicants will be interested in adding new perspectives on the relations between the ideas and the lived experiences of borders within Live Art practices, and in exploring  the potentialities of digital conversations as a way to re-imagine and share knowledge-production within the field.

For 2020, performingbordersLIVE and LADA are interested in receiving proposals addressing Live Art practices that sensitively explore the intertwined, complex and challenging relations between the environmental crisis, migration, collective care and performative processes.

The digital conversations can be explored and produced in any digital form applicants see fit. This includes writing, video, collage or audio etc, however, the conversations should be an exploration between at least two individuals or entities.

Whilst there are no restrictions on what issues, themes or ideas your proposal might focus on, we would encourage applicants to explore this commissioning brief through the lens of groundbreaking artistic practices, more than through activism-led actions, in order to contribute to performingborders and LADA’s ongoing research into how Live Art can create knowledge and initiate meaningful social change.

The works will be premiered online on both performingborders online platform and LADA’s website. They will also be exhibited at the final performingbordersLIVE20 event at Live Art Development Agency (date TBA).

Please see the performingbordersLIVE2019 digital conversations commissions as example of how others have approached this brief:
ALL THE TEA IN CHINA by BURONG
PATROLLING by CRITICAL INTERRUPTIONS

The two selected proposals will receive an honorarium of £400 each (inclusive of taxes and expenses) for the preparation and delivery of the digital conversation.

The conversations will be published on both the performingborders online platform (performingborders.live) and LADA’s website (thisisliveart.co.uk) as contributions to the ongoing discussions around borders and Live Art, and as free-to-access resources for artists, art professionals, academics, students, and general public interested in researching the topic.

The performingbordersLIVE20 curators and LADA team will work with the selected applicants to assist the creation of the final conversations which must be produced and delivered by 10th July 2020.

Anyone who works in Live Art in the UK and/or internationally and whose practice and research has been shaped by experiences of migration and borders is eligible and welcome to apply. We welcome proposals from individuals, collaborations and collectives (the fee for the delivered piece however will remain £400).

To apply, please send the following information in either:

• one document (word or pdf) OR
• one video or sound file

by Thursday 7 May, 12 noon (UK time) to [email protected]

Your application will include:

• Your proposal (max 300 words / 3 minute video or sound file) for a digital conversation highlighting from which perspective you will address the commissioning brief, structure of the conversation, artist/s or others involved, chosen media (eg. text, image, video, sound and/or any combination of them)
• Your biography (max 150 words / 1 minute video or sound file), website, email and telephone contact
• 2 x samples of your writing and/or digitally published text/video/sound contributions (web links are accepted)

If you need more information or any support including any specific access requirements with the application process please contact [email protected]

The applications will be assessed by the performingbordersLIVE20 Curators and LADA.

Successful applicants will be notified by 30th May 2020.

performingbordersLIVE is a programme of events and new commissions curated by Alessandra Cianetti and Xavier de Sousa and focusing on the exploration of artistic practices happening within the UK Live Art sector around notions of cultural, juridical, racial, gendered, class, physical and everyday borders. performingbordersLIVE20 is presented in by performingborders and Foreign Actions Productions in collaboration with Counterpoints Arts (London, UK), Live Art Development Agency (London, UK), Contact Theatre (Manchester, UK), East Street Arts (Leeds, UK), Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (Brighton, UK), The Albany & Deptford Lounge (London, UK), Asia-Art-Activism & Something Human (London, UK), King’s College London, Never Done (London), OROAnike (London), East London Cable (London, UK), Green Rooms Hotel (London, UK), Howlround Theatre Commons (Boston, US), and International Performing Arts Festival – IPAF (Copenhagen, Denmark). Supported by the Arts Council England. https://performingborders.live

Live Art Development Agency (LADA) is a ‘Centre for Live Art’: a knowledge centre, a production centre for programmes and publications, a knowledge and research centre setting artists and ideas in motion, and an online centre for digital representation and dissemination. Through Projects & Events, Opportunities, Resources and Publications, LADA supports contemporary culture’s most radical and inventive artists, practices and ideas. LADA champions new ways of working, legitimise unclassifiable artforms, record untold histories, create the conditions in which innovation and risk can thrive, and support the agency of underrepresented artists.