OPEN CALL | 20TH CONTEMPORARY ART FESTIVAL SESC_VIDEOBRASIL October 3rd to November 17th 2016

Entries are open to artists from the Global South and Portuguese-speaking countries

 Entries for the 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil will open on October 3rd. Up until November 17th, 2016, artists from the Global South and from Portuguese language speaking countries can enter their new or existing artworks in any language or theme, free of charge. The 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil will run from October 2017 to January 2018 at Sesc 24 de Maio, a unit of Sesc São Paulo designed by architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, and at Galpão VB, headquarters of Associação Cultural Videobrasil.

The term Global South refers to a field of research used by human sciences and arts that relates to cultural, economic, and political situation of countries and territories on the fringe of mainstream modernization. Aware of the transient character of this notion, Associação Cultural Videobrasil and Sesc São Paulo steer their actions toward constantly reassessing the statute of this concept.

For this open call, the macro-region at hand will comprise countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia (except Japan), Eastern Europe (including the Balkans), the Middle East, Oceania, and the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries – the latter being one of the new additions of this 20th edition. Apart from Brazil, the CPLP comprises: Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor.

The commission will select as many as 50 artists to take part in art shows, video screenings, performances, meetings with artists, public program activities, educational actions, and publication launches set to take place during the Festival, which has cemented its status as the premier Global South art platform. Shortlisted video artworks will be incorporated into the Videobrasil Historical Collection, that comprises works shown in over three decades of Festivals.

In this 20th edition, the featured artists and groups from Brazil and other countries will compete for two types of prizes. An international jury of contemporary art professionals will award 03 (three) Acquisition Awards of BRL 25,000 each to video works that will become part of the Sesc Brazilian Art Collection.

A jury of delegates of residence institutions which are partners of the Festival will award 05 (five) Artist Residency Awards, that will take place throughout 2017. Each award includes  airfare,  accomodation, and a per diem.

 Free online registration from October 3rd: www.videobrasil.org.br/opencall

Send through your entry!

Find out more about 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil curators:

Chief curator:

Solange Farkas is curator and director of Associação Cultural Videobrasil, as well as founder of the Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil, first held in 1983. She was director and chief curator of the Bahia Museum of Modern Art from 2007 to 2010. She served as a guest curator at the 10th Sharjah Biennial (United Arab Emirates, 2011), the 16th Cerveira Biennial (Portugal, 2011), the FUSO - Annual Video Art Festival (Portugal, 2011 and 2013) as well as the exhibitions La Mirada Discreta: Marcel Odenbach & Robert Cahen (Buenos Aires, 2006); Roteiro Amarrado (CCBB Rio de Janeiro, 2010) and Suspensão e Fluidez (ARCO, Madrid, 2007), the two latter focussing on the work of Brazilian artist Eder Santos; and African Contemporary Art Exhibition (2000), in partnership with Klive Kellner, with artists like William Kentridge, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Sue Williamson, Oladele Ajiboye Bamgboye and Kendell Geers, and, more recently, Amanhã vai ficar tudo bem, by Akram Zaatari (São Paulo, 2016) held at Galpão VB.


Guest curators:

Ana Pato is a curator and researcher. A doctoral student at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of the University of São Paulo (FAU-USP), she was chief curator of the 3rd Bahia Biennale (2014) and director of projects of Associação Cultural Videobrasil (2000-2012). She is the author of the bookLiteratura Expandida: arquivo e citação na obra de Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (Expanded Literature: archive and quotation in the work of Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster).

Beatriz Lemos is a curator specialized in arts and digital networks. Holder of a master's degree in Social History of Culture from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ), she is the coordinator of the publishing house Sismos Editorial and creator of the online platform Lastro. Since September 2015, she has been a member of Parque Lage Visual Arts School's Visiting Curator Program.

Diego Matos is a researcher, professor and curator. He holds a master's and a doctorate degrees from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of the University of São Paulo (FAU-USP). He was assistant curator for the 29th São Paulo Art Biennial (2010) and for the 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil (2013). From 2014 to 2016, he coordinated the Archive and Research Team at Associação Cultural Videobrasil.

João Laia is a writer and curator. He has curated for institutions like Moderna Museet, in Stockholm; the Chiado National Museum of Contemporary Art, in Lisbon; Videoex, in Zurich; Delfina Foundation and Whitechapel Gallery, both in London; and Parque Lage, in Rio de Janeiro. He contributes with texts and reviews for publications and vehicles Frieze, Mousse, Flash Art, Terremoto and Público.

Boda Boda Lounge 2016 Open Call

The Boda Boda Lounge Project is a cross-continental video festival that will feature at over 15 spaces throughout Africa between the 18 – 20 November 2016. Boda Boda Lounge Project is currently accepting video art submissions from artists based in Africa and of African descent. Relevant submissions will be put forward for intercontinental screening and exhibition programming. 

The Boda Boda Lounge project is based on the conviction that video art can create exchanges between different contexts in Africa that allow both the transcending of physical boundaries and the creation of an intimate atmosphere for introspection and contemplation.

In this year of the second iteration of Boda Boda Lounge, 2016 sees the bending of terrorism torn borders, threats of the building of walls and increasingly squeezed spaces for progressive thought and political leadership worldwide. This state of urgency limits our agency over space and ability to define it in ways that are inclusive and open. Such a belief requires we dare a different reading of space, its scope and its limitations, but also to discover the interstitial spaces, to open up unsuspected pores, to drag along new fluidities, to experiment with new elasticities and, in short, to imagine alternative channels of fluxes, crossings and entangling of energies and meaning.

In redefining space we propose to look down and through rather than around us. Based on the metaphor of the stack of layers, this year’s theme highlights the ability of the artist to excavate, bend and twist spaces. It is to these spatiotemporal crosses the edition 2016 Boda Boda Lounge invites by choosing as theme SuperPosition, an archeology of the present.

Beyond the simple technique gesture to overlay the video elements (superpose), we seek video works for the Boda Boda Lounge project to show the artist's responsibility to stand outside video’s elements and reorganise them in order to better convey its narrative. The 2016 Boda Boda Lounge will exhibit video art works that burrow into the future, like an archaeologist.

The Boda Boda Lounge Project is a collaborative project between VANSA (South Africa), Waza (Congo DRC) and VAN Lagos (Nigeria). It intends to enable wide access for African artists to be part of the festival and to enable a wide range of African arts organisations to take part. It is an engagement with low cost, widely accessible exchange processes on the African Continent.
The project will take place in a number of the venues (Hosting Hubs) across the continent.

Selection Criteria
The works will travel through the many venues during selection period, where each hosting hub nominated jury will do a final selection for the exhibition.
Download application forms here (ENG / FR) and submit them to taryn@vansa.co.za with the subject line [Boda Boda Project Submission]. You can also email this address for enquirers.