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OPEN CALL: Performers for the work Rewinding (call extended until 6.6.)

Photo: Diego Bianchi

Please note, that the open call for performers for Diego Bianchi’s work Rewinding has been extended! Applications can be sent until Tuesday, 6th of June.
All previous candidates have been informed and their applications are being considered.

New Performance Turku Biennale and Diego Bianchi are looking for performers to take part in the work Rewinding. The performance welcomes enthusiasts of varied backgrounds, ages, and origins as well as performative artists or students. 6-9 people will be selected to take part in the final action during the New Performance Turku Biennale in September.

The performance Rewinding proposes to turn shop windows in the city center of Turku into living dioramas, generating capsules inside them where time can be manipulated, and passersby may observe how people and bodies re-signify spaces. The work proposes a sort of coral situation, playing with similarities and differences, sustained over time and space as an invisible connection between participants. 

The application process happens in two stages: up to 20 people will be selected in the first workshop/info session based on motivation letters. The info session will be organized remotely July 5th between 14:30-17:30 (Finnish time, UTC+3). After the remote workshop, 6-9 participants are selected for the final performance. Selected performers will be provided a performance fee of 200 Euros each. The language of the process is English. Knowledge of Spanish is also welcomed, but not expected.

In addition to the info workshop in July, the preparation for the performance includes 1 hour one-on-one -meeting (remotely) in August with the artist, and 2 hours preparation in the performance space prior to the performance. The performances and the preparation will happen between 3.-10.9.2023.

Applications for the first workshop/info session are accepted until 6.6.
You can fill in your application here: https://forms.gle/umvfn2pkJa6s13oj8 

Schedule for the process

  • Open Call until 6.6.2023 23:59
  • First session: workshop / info session to explain the method, with selected candidates (up to 20) together on Zoom (3hr), Wednesday 5th of July, 14:30-17:30 Finnish time (UTC+3)
  • Selection/confirmation of 6-9 performing participants (mid-July)
  • Second session: one-on-one workshop. Remote meeting in Zoom (1hr) with Diego, in August.
  • Third session: In-person rehearsal (2 hr) of each performer onsite with Diego, right before the biennale, 3.-4.9.2023
  • Performing at the New Performance Turku Biennale (1-2 hrs) between 5.-10.9.2023

Working process

Among the interests to be explored through the workshop, it will investigate how bodies assimilate the time of objects, exploring the idea that bodies and objects are indistinguishable, and constructing hybrid situations of interconnection and mutual transformation. Diego Bianchi is also interested in generating images that bring aspects of the present to extreme absurdity or dysfunctionality. 

Diego will be working with instructions (scores), exercises, writings and references for building a common repertory of resources for the final performance.

Performers will manipulate and repurpose objects and materials using them as prostheses for the body. They will have the support of Diego during the workshop process and also during the actual performance event. Candidates are invited to have an open-minded attitude and a disposition to listening, seeing and reading material and gestural signs around them when approaching objects.  The purpose is to be a receptive “embodied antenna” for bio-material interactions in context. 

From the candidates we expect:

You are curious to work with your body in experimental and artistic ways and reflect on how bodies relate to other beings, objects, places. You are interested in the artist’s thinking process and how performers become living, breathing sculptures.

You may have some familiarity with performance practices, be a performance and live art student or professional, or have no formal connection with the contemporary art field. But you surely enjoy these practices and find them thought-provoking!

You can be of any age, gender, race, ability, and cultural background. Do let us know if you have any accessibility requirements to be part of the process. We will try our best to provide all that is needed.

What comes out of the process?

The participants will perform each in a different public space or site supported by Diego. During each action they will explore the tension between image, time, gesture, and also the possibilities of the body to be part of an objectual or sculptural image. The performance investigates how this image could be continued during time, how the bodies could transmute in other things, or be part of a system of things.

Diego will be present and collaborate in the work of every particular performer in Turku, and he will contribute objects, prosthesis, and also with suggestions and general settings for each location.

About the artist

Diego Bianchi was born in 1969 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he still lives and works. Bianchi’s practice proposes an apotheosis of everyday situations, such as the derailment of human excess and the anarchic order that follows. Bianchi’s work includes eclectic sculptures and installations, often utilizing elements of performance, which address both aesthetic standards as well as socio-political/-economic issues. One focus of Bianchi’s work is the relationship between human bodies and objects, between desires and devices. His pieces are constructed with visually transgressive materials that range from discarded objects to casts of body-parts.

Among other grants and awards, Bianchi was awarded the Fondo national de las Artes contest and Azcuy/Museum de Arte Moderno Prize, in 2019. His recent exhibitions include Táctica Sintáctica, Museum Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid, Spain, 2022 and Marres House of Contemporary Culture, Maastricht, Netherlands, 2023; Inflation, 11th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK, 2021 and Bienal de Performance 2021 (B.P.21), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2021; Sauvetage Sauvage, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Romainville, France, 2020.  He has given numerous seminars and workshops for artists since 2009. He named his workshops “Anti-proyect” as a proposal to explore the present.

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