«FastForwART» Grantees Announcement
We are pleased to announce the finalists of our «FastForwART» open call.
As a brief reminder, we have launched the «FastForwART» initiative to support new formats of the cultural exchange, innovative ideas and experimental forms of creative cooperation, which take into account crucial changes in the cultural sector caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have received over 60 applications from the artists and creative teams from all over Russia. Six projects from Moscow, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg and Kazan won.
We thank all the contestants and happy to present the winners.
Selected projects:
«Unaimed sessions» by League of Tenders (Krasnodar) and independent curator Joana Monbaron
«Unaimed Sessions» is a series of online discussion between Swiss and Russian artists, creative teams and artistic initiatives. Their principal (non)aim is to establish unexpected wide-open relations and to support working networks during the time when offline communication remains unstable and unpredictable.
The project organizers consider the informal network of creative unions, which in turn will produce many other various collaborations as one of the project results.
A publication in English and Russian will summarize each of the (un)aimed sessions.
«You, inter alia» by independent curatorial duo Alina Belishkina and Valeria Mostovaya (St.Petersburg)
The key element of «You, inter alia» is a website, which contains the maps of St. Petersburg and Geneva with special routes and archives of letters in audio format read by the artists from Russia and Switzerland.
The website visitors can choose a route, download a corresponding audio message and take a walk along the city. The project authors invite their users not only follow the suggested paths but also experiment on their way, make their own choices, for instance, walk across St. Petersburg with the map of Geneva listening to the messages in foreign language or vice versa.
The project asks how an individual experience in walking, writing and listening, i.e. those few things that are uninfluenced by the limitations introduced with the pandemic, helps re-discover and re-define the notions of collectivity and cooperation. Updating the usual everyday experiences, «You, inter alia» explores the possibility of creating a space of collective action in the world which isolates us from one another.
«NotLand, a virtual space for art experiments», FFTN Gallery and KZ Gallery (St.Petersburg)
The project «NotLand» is created on the edge of contemporary art and game design. It invites its users into a virtual space designed in the aesthetics of computer games as an alternative medium for the cultural exchange. Project authors believe that software is a powerful medium capable to create and to present contemporary art in the safe virtual space.
Inside the «NotLand» the users can live through an unusual experience and take a walk along the art spaces of the virtual exhibits of the Swiss and Russian artists.
Spatial ElectroAcoustics Laboratory X Space Emulation Art Label by Boris Shershenkov (St.Petersburg)
Spatial ElectroAcoustics Laboratory is an interdisciplinary multimedia project dedicated to the creation and preservation of audio-visual spaces combining classical model of music distribution and the latest achievements in the field of web-technology, virtual and augmented reality.
The principal idea of the project is to create a new format of the presentation of sound installations, acousmatic pieces, kinetic and 3D sculptures, which are hard to access for the wide audiences due to the new sanitary norms.
«P2P On Air» by The Studio for New Music Ensemble (Moscow)
The «P2P On Air» is aimed at the collaborative creative practice between musicians and composers in the situation when international face-to-face collaboration is complicated. «P2P On Air» is an online sessions with the musicians from the Studio of New Music and two Swiss composers Annette Schmucki and Serge Vuille. The key task of the project is to methodologically develop the novel way of creative exchange in the new situation, which would go beyond the usual online dialogue and open the possibilities for the composers and performers to work together over the new pieces. Working sessions will be open for everyone.
Online fellowship for independent institutions by “Smena” Center of Contemporary Culture and Centre of Contemporary Art “Typography” (Krasnodar)
«Smena» Centre of Contemporary Culture and Centre of Contemporary Art “Typography” launch international fellowship program of self-organized cultural institutions, artist-run spaces and regional projects in the field of culture. The programme is aimed at the development of international relations, skills improvement and exchange between Swiss and Russian artistic communities.
Online presentations, discussions, Q&A sessions, and other educational events will serve as a project foundation. Offline programme within the project is scheduled for summer 2021.
