City Culture Institute (IKM) together with Gdańsk City Gallery (GGM) invite you to the 11th edition of the NARRACJE Festival, which will take place through November 15th and 16th in Siedlce district of Gdańsk. The event has been exploring urban plots and stories since 2009. Artistic interventions in the public space of the districts of Gdańsk give a contemporary context to everyday places and allow to discover them again. At the same time, the institutions invite you to take part in an open call for the curator of the NARRACJE #11 festival.

THE RULES AND REGULATIONS [here] | A STATEMENT OF A LICENCE [here] | Historical location study conducted for NARRACJE 2019 [here]

The festival takes place in autumn, when most cultural activities enter the galleries and institutions. NARRACJE give a reason to leave the house on two November evenings and discover the city again. City Culture Institute and Gdańsk City Gallery invite curators from Poland and abroad to participate in the open call. Detailed regulations can be found at: www.narracje.eu and www.ikm.gda.pl/narracje.

The characteristics of the NARRACJE Festival

For a decade, the profile of the festival has changed: effective lighting installations quickly give way to forms that critically analise the space and enable the initiation of a closer dialogue with it. Every year, NARRACJE enter the city deeper and deeper – leaving the strict center with rising courage to grow within further districts. These places themselves become co-organizers and co-curators. The city lends its stories to NARRACJE, suggests themes, provoke solutions, resists certain realizations and favors others.

The strength of the festival lies in the respect with which its creators approach the living organism of the city and the sense of how to work with space and its legitimate residents – the local inhabitants. Conscious of the temptations and dangers, curators and artists ensure that works created for specific locations do not stigmatize the visited districts and do not objectify their residents.

Gdańsk-Siedlce. Festival district of the 2019 edition

The 11th edition of the NARRACJE Festival will take place in the Siedlce district of Gdańsk. This area, due to its favorable location, has been inhabited since the Middle Ages, and the local settlements formed the suburbs of the city. In the 19th century, the area of ​​Siedlce was incorporated into the city and the green suburb gradually began to change into a workers’ quarter. The 20th century accelerated the transformation process, the effects of which we can observe today. In terms of architecture, Siedlce is one of the most diversified districts of Gdańsk. Here we find tenement houses and workers’ houses from the 19th and early 20th century, neo-gothic, towering buildings, modernist, modern design housing, social-realist housing estate, overwhelming block of flats, naivally fairytale postmodernism and contemporary housing estates separating themselves from the district.

The framework of the NARRACJE 2019 Festival open call for the curator

The open call runs from January 22 to February 28, 2019.

Applications are accepted by e-mail: info@narracje.eu or by post to the following address: Instytut Kultury Miejska, ul. Długi Targ 39/40, 80-830 Gdańsk.

Applications should contain: a letter of intent describing the reasons for participation in the open call; a draft of the Festival concept pertaining to the specifics of the area where the Festival is going to be held; a preliminary list of artists to be invited to participate in the Festival and a brief description of their realized or planned projects or activities in public space that would become a part of the Festival the 11th edition’s programme, along with pictures or visualizations (regards to the works already created); Festival budget estimation; current candidate’s CV containing information about professional experience, previously realised festivals and other artistic projects as well as main education.

Curator of NARRACJE #11 will be selected by a five-member Jury, which includes the directors of the City Culture Institute and the Gdańsk City Gallery as well as invited representatives of creative circles. The results will be announced by March 14 inclusive at www.ikm.gda.pl.

NARRACJE Festival 2009–18

#1, Główne Miasto, 26.11-6.12. 2009, curator: Bettina Pelz

#2, Lost and Found, Główne Miasto, 18-21.11.2010, curator: Bettina Pelz

#3, Natura miasta / Nature of the City, Dolne Miasto, 17-20.11.2011, curator: Bettina Pelz

#4, Czyś odeszła, ukochana zjawo? / Art Thou Gone, Beloved Ghost?, Główne Miasto and Gdańsk Shipyard, 15 – 18.11.2012, curator: Steven Matijcio

#5, Odkrywanie zachwyca / Unearthing Delights, Długie Ogrody, 15-17.11.2013, curator: Rob Garrett

#6, Mędrzec i duch / The Sage and the Ghost, Wrzeszcz Górny, 15 -16.11.2014, curators: Anna Witkowska, Adam Witkowski

#7, Przemytnicy / The Smugglers, Nowy Port, 20-21.11.2015, curator: Anna Smolak

#8, Królestwo 60,8 m n.p.m / The Kingdom 60,8 m asl, Biskupia Górka, 21-22.10.2016, curator: Stach Szabłowski

#9, Poza sezonem / Off Season, Brzeźno, 17-18.11.2017, curator: Anna Czaban

#10, Słońca w ciszy były jak wielki śpiew w zenicie / The silent suns were like a giant zenith of a song, Oliwa, 16-17.11.2018, curator: Piotr Stasiowski

www.narracje.eu

www.facebook.com/NarracjeGdansk

Organised by: City Culture Institute, co-organised by Gdańsk City Gallery


Information and archive from the previous editions: http://narracje.eu/

 

Project coordinator

Joanna Weltrowska

Joanna Weltrowska

Graduated from the University of Gdańsk (History of Art) and completed post-graduate courses in Culture Marketing organized by the National Centre for Culture in cooperation with the University of Warsaw. Before August 2012, she was the Culture Officer at the President’s Office in the City Hall in Gdańsk and her duties included coordinating cultural projects on behalf of the Office (including Streetwaves, Narrations) and managing scholarship programmes for artists. Currently, she works as a Project Organization Specialist at the City Culture Institute and her work includes projects implemented in the public space such as: Narrations. Installations and Interventions in the Public Space, Opera at the Coal Market.

e-mail: joanna.weltrowska@ikm.gda.pl

phone: 785852016