We apologize for being late in posting this call, but there is still a week to get applications in! Click here to see the full information
Call for art project at the Mediaș, Romania synagogue complex
Absence as Heritage
Visualizing a Shared Past, Creating a Common Future
Through Archives and Architecture of Vanished Communities
at the synagogue complex in Mediaș, Romania
From the organizers:
We are looking for an artist to develop a three-year collaborative project based at the Mediaș synagogue complex (synagogue, garden, community offices and clergy residence) beginning in May 2016.
The artist will collaborate with a researcher and an on-site administrator in developing long-term participatory art projects. The bulk of the collaborative work is expected, but not required, to take place in the context of three two-month residencies from 2016-2018.
This is a paid engagement with allowances for travel (within Romania) and a production budget (€1800 annual residency honorarium; €750 annual production budget; travel and living allowance).
The application must be in English. The due date for applications is midnight, (EET), 1 April 2016. Selection will be announced by 11 April 2016.
Click here for full information, or email [email protected] for call details and application requirements.
Employing a contemporary artist and a researcher to explore and exploit the built heritage of the synagogue complex and the documentary heritage of archives and religious and secular printed material, the project Absence as Heritage questions the value of the heritage of absent populations to those that remain.
In a region of shifted populations, a territory indelibly altered by the mass population movements brought on by wars and regime changes of the early 20th century, how can disappearing cultural heritage(s) be preserved, explored, and understood?
How can these places, items, or traditions of “abandoned” heritage be used to understand a collective past and how can they be employed to create a future of positive, multifaceted European identities?
Spaces and material of “Jewish Medias” and the pre-World War II multiethnic character of the town will be used as platforms to develop participatory, collaborative projects involving the local community and school classes. Transylvania’s intrinsic multilingualism will be plumbed using archival material in German, Hungarian, Romanian, and Yiddish. Questions of identity and the possibility of myriad identities – Romanian, Hungarian, German, Jewish, European, Transylvanian, will be probed throughout the project.
See our JHE photo gallery of the Mediaș synagogue