4 Jan 2021
Open Call for Maritime Portal Residency
All the Way South x As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future
Before the navigational expansion of European pilgrims and commerce in 16th century, maritime exchange of labor, goods and finances, movement of peoples and cultures had flourished along ancient port regions of the south, and have continued to shape contemporary agendas ranging from geopolitical relations, environment and climate change, international trade, to migration policies and forced displacement, food security, and global co-immunity. Yet models, cartographies and vocabularies available for reading these intersectional trajectories are largely oriented around the metropole-periphery coordinates and economic criteria. Indigenous relations of subjects, objects and places, and local schemes of cultural cosmopolitanism, are either erased or written into top-down registrations of colonial mindset, imperial struggles and competitiveness of nation states.
In order to foster a knowledge field that intervenes within the conundrum of globalization, and to pursue connectivity across oceans and borders, we are pleased to announce the Open Call for Maritime Portal Residency, as a collaborative initiative of All the Way South x As you go…roads under your feet, towards the new future. It bridges many understandings of the south that only overlap partially with the geographical South and engages the histories and realities emerged from long lines of maritime mapping and entanglement. We are looking for artists, researchers, or cultural practitioners living in southern port cities or regions, to work remotely and digitally to explore alternative maritime historiographies and cartographies from various locales. We encourage mediatized readings, articulations and documentations that sink the abstracted mode of globalization into different forms of embodiment, be it foods and textiles, sounds and architectures, folk rituals and myths.
The digital alliance of portal residency is not a temporary reaction to the obstacle of global mobility, but a long-term commitment to facilitating undisciplined practice and decentralized network in relation to the epistemologies of south (Boaventura de Sousa Santos) that share common struggle against colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, and the on-going process of southernization driven by transnational chain of capital, infrastructure and technology.
Maritime Portal Residency provides:
A podcast conversation about the collaborative development to be publicized on Times Museum’s “The Rolling Congee”;
Presentation on the digital platforms of “On Our Times” and “As you go…”;
RMB 15000 (about USD 2000) for the full project duration payable in three instalments + fees for contributing to the podcast and digital platform if appliable;
Access to readers, workshops and webinars spanning curatorial and artistic research, creative writing, critical geography as well as to the network of All the Way South and As you go… ;
Technical support and consultancy regarding the digital correspondence and representation
Important Dates:
– Application Deadline: Feb 5th 2021
Notification: Feb 22-26th 2021· Project Duration: 12 months· Digital Presentation: To be confirmed according to the project development
Applications must include:
Cover Letter (please detail the reasons of your interest in the position, how you would be able to contribute to the maritime network based on your previous work and/or interests, and how the presidency would benefit your own practice and development);
CV, portfolio and significant samples of previous work;
There is no restriction on the applicant’s nationality, but applicants are encouraged to carefully read the project outline before applying;
Please submit your application to MPR@timesmuseum.org
Scope of Work and Responsibilities include (but may not be limited to)
Contribute to identify relevant data, records, bodies of knowledge, and expertise;
Maintain digital correspondences and share materials with the exchange network of All the Way South and As you go…
Participate in monthly meetings of As you go…project research clusters for update and feedback on project development;
Commit on a part-time basis to access site-specific materials, objects, and to conduct archival and research-based work locally;
Conduct interviews with relevant individuals and groups if necessary;
Conduct fieldwork at local sites which might include audio-visual recording (photography, video, sound recordings, etc), measurements, sampling, etc.
Participate in the public moments of As you go… project and its publishing activities
All the Way South is an exchange network of research, residency and commission initiated by Times Museum. It is a relational response to the diverse processes of southernization and to the historical resonances between southern China and the Souths of the world. We collaborate with cultural makers and institutions to create new geographical trajectories around diasporic memories and experiences, and bridge artist observations of our transregional society with archival and academic practice. We prioritize initiatives that unfold overtime and cross disciplines, and provide funding and resources for the ones that are marginalized by the market.
As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future is a long-term project and research inquiry that reflects on the Belt and Road Initiative and how it will alter the aesthetics and practices of everyday life in different local contexts. The project was conceived and initiated by Biljana Ciric in 2019 after conducting curatorial research in East Africa, Central Asia, and several Balkan countries. The inquiry is structured as a long-term research project over a period of three years through research cells of organizations, institutions and individuals: What Could Should Curating Do (Belgrade).
Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Guangdong Times Museum (Guangzhou), ArtCom (Astana), Robel Temesgen and Sinkneh Eshetu (Addis Ababa), and The Public Library (Bor). Please refer to
http://old.wcscd.com/index.php/2020/01/07/as-you-go-the-roads-under-your-feet-towards-a-new-future/