a language where yesterday and tomorrow are the same word. Kal

OPEN CALL
District Studio Grant (1 November 2020 to 31 March 2021)

For the coming District Studio Grant (winter-spring 2020/2021) we are seeking an artist or artist collective who are interested in contributing to a language where yesterday and tomorrow are the same word. Kal (kal).

A trans*oceanic platform for slow approaches, performative interventions and poetic strategies in visual and literary forms, kal traces, imagines and enacts queer futures and pasts that are connected through bodies of water lapping at the shorelines of the Arabian Sea in Karachi, the Indian Ocean in Colombo, the tidal merge of the Atlantic and Shannon river in the West of Ireland, the Pacific in North America and the River Spree in Berlin. Gathering artists and writers from South Asia, the South Asian diaspora and post-migrant Europe, kal unfolds from fall 2020 through winter 2021.

As kal unfolds in current pandemic time and amidst deep ecological and social transformations, so does our shared language and programming. In response to the times and places we live in, kal places focus on queer futurist imaginaries that interrogate and counter ever more hostile racist and Islamophobic societies and fabulate ecologies after patriarchy, capitalism and gender.

For more information on a language where yesterday and tomorrow are the same word. Kal click here.

The District Studio Grant as part of “a language where yesterday and tomorrow are the same word. Kal.” comprises a studio at District (15 sqm) from 1 November 2020 to 31 March 2021 and a fee of 1500 euros for the research and making of a new work (700 euro) and the collaborative development of a public format during the kal program of transoceanic gatherings in summer 2021 (800 euro). The grant artist or collective will be actively supported by the curators of kal (Aziz Sohail & The Many Headed Hydra) and the District team.

The District Studio Grant is part of District’s work in building a community of solidarity in the arts and of creating an ongoing dialogues between artistic, curatorial, research, educational and activist practices. The program is aimed at artists who are also women, queer, gender nonconforming and/or trans and offers an open forum for the reflection, advancement, and interconnection of artistic practices. The Studio Grant—awarded for six months—aims to structurally support artists, place artistic research in a local context, and to create ongoing discursive and working relationships.

Application 
information

Deadline: Sunday, 18 October 2020

Materials: We are looking forward to applications containing a letter of motivation and working proposal (max. 2 pages), a current CV with complete contact details and a portfolio / references to your current and previous work (max. 10 pages, 5MB, and 2 video links).

Language: English

Address: studiogrant@district-berlin.com