Livingstone Office for Contemporary Arts, Livingstone, Zambia
Deadline: 30 May 2021
The Livingstone office for Contemporary Arts is building up an alternative informal school of thought centred upon participatory and exchange modes of (collaborative/collective) learning/teaching through intensive laboratories, in form workshops, reading/research groups, talks, discursive sessions and screenings.
In August 2019, the Livingstone office for Contemporary Art initiated a lab towards building up a curriculum for an alternative informal school of thought centred upon participatory and exchange modes of (collaborative) learning/teaching through intensive laboratories, in form workshops, reading/research groups, talks, discursive sessions and screenings. The first episode under the title Tuning In; Other Ways of Seeing was set up as 2.5 weeks intensive workshop, emphasising critical articulation and research, and mediated in the form of a podcast. The second Tuning In Minilab was held in 2020, under the facilitation of Tenthaus’s Ebba Moi and Helen Eriksen and visiting Artist Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa. Due to the coronation pandemic, The facilitators had to leave the country and exchange to a virtual format. Participants continued to work in small, with regulated physical gathering throughout the year.
This project stemmed from the need to fill in the gap within Zambia artistic practices that suffer from enormous critical reflection intellectual and infrastructural deficits-. And the need to create local ecologies that employ a process of unlearning- relearning of our society, the knowledge and methods that exist within the indigenous ways of knowing. Tuning In draws its motivation from different programs worldwide, e.g. Asiko, a revolving art educational program conceived by Bisi Silva and the CCA Lagos. Based on the success of 2020 Minilab, we are concentrating on developing the lab into a yearly studio program, with the possibility of 7 facilitators that will engage with participants throughout the year. We invite emerging artists, writers, and curators to apply an international faculty of practising artists, art historians, curators and writers, for an intensive course of study in art and curatorial history, research methodologies and professional development.
Context
The LoCA Tuning In Lab focuses on criticality and art production and the need to build on well research themes and understanding of aesthetics in critically well-articulated art. Builds workshops that raise questions on deconstructing the paradigms that have driven the reading, seeing, presentation or representation of the artwork produced while borrowing from our indigenous methodologies. Livingstone as a host has a rich uniqueness in not only being the home of Victoria Falls and her cultural, political, architectural, migration, colonial and pre-colonial histories, makes it a fertile city for functioning as a hub of thought and research think tank. Some of these historical references are as follows; In the late 1890s, King Lewanika of the Barotse Kingdom, been a very talented artist himself, opened an artist of which he had several students learning under his instruction as apprentices. Through this art school, Lewanika saw an opportunity to show the cultural (and by extension a political and economic) significance of Barotseland. It is also from the production of the art school that Yeta III gave a Silimba (xylophone) to Frank Worthington (Governor of Choma) as a gesture of diplomacy. Today the site (which is right at the Victoria Falls) of the school is used as a curio market. Livingstone’s earliest immigrants outside the region (Southern Africa) were the Jews from the late 1890s and the Indians in the 1920s. By 1928 the Jewish community had grown, the active congregation was founded with the Livingstone synagogue (now Church of Christ) was built in 1905. At independence, Zambia housed up to 15 headquarters of liberation struggle movements from the Southern African region countries, namely, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Angola, Namibia, and Mozambique. Livingstone was on the front line of two crucial conflicts in southern Africa. During the war against Ian Smith’s UDI government, Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA (a military guerrilla faction of his party ZAPU) had a base in Livingstone. Livingstone was also used as a transit point for the African National Congress (ANC) guerrillas fighting the national party government in South Africa. In 1987, South African commandos attacked Livingstone in a pre-dawn raid and destroyed the National Provident Fund building, claiming that it was used to cache arms. The army’s statement said that the commandos were engaged in « an armed reconnaissance on a terrorist infiltration route from Zambia through Botswana » to South Africa when they clashed twice with ANC insurgents. The Zambian government and ANC claimed the four people that died in operation were innocent Zambian civilians and not terrorists.
Therefore, in such a historical layered city, how do artists reflect /negotiate/shape the narrative, read our society, and learn. How do artists respond and articulate the issues that arise from how history meets today’s politics and ethos. The minilab will privilege experimentation over conventional approaches to art-making and curatorial enquiry, encouraging participants to work with ideas, proposals and projects for long-term development and implementation.
Benefits for the participants Include:
Who Can Apply?
Our program is mainly targeted at African artist living on the continent. But we also encourage applicants from the diaspora and the world over. We want to open dialogues on what Livingstone means to Johannesburg or Dar es Salaam, or Harare, Maputo, Malindi or Luanda etc. and what kind of contemporary thought, dialogues and creation of such meeting- points can foster towards a global discourse.
*Visual Artists can be working in any media – painting, text, sculpture, textile, ceramics, photography, sound, video, film and performance art
*Curators and writers from across Africa with at least two years of experience would benefit from close interaction with artists and other professionals.
*Applications are open to all artists (with or without formal art education) who have been professionally active for at least three years.
Tuning In: Studio Program is an intensive program that will take place from September 6, 2021, to August 2022, and has 10 segments that are divided into 4 minilabs, 6 presentations/seminar, participants are divided into discursive groups of 5. There are two content facilitators throughout the program, and each segment is complemented by 1-3 experienced local and international art practitioners such as curators, artists, historians, filmmakers, and writers. This gives participants a broad range of understanding processes and opinions to consider for their own development, stimulate discussion, thought, and reflection opportunities. Some segments will introduce and focus on non-traditional art-making approaches and curatorial strategies to help participants realise and achieve their unique visions. Participating artists and curators are encouraged to present their work to their colleagues and the facilitators through seminars, talks, presentations.
Conditions of Acceptance:
All Participants must be available for the duration of the entire program. Please do not apply if you cannot attend the whole program.
The Tuning In-Studio program will be conducted principally in English, and participants must have at least a conversational English level.
ZOOM interviews will be conducted for the selection.
For additional information, please contact loca.contemporary@gmail.com
*Availability September 6, 2021 – August 2022
*Completion of the application form
*We articulated concept note
*The group (artists+curators) will produce and present either collaborative art project or individual to be shown publicly using different forms of presenting art or research.
Program Costs
Due to the COVID, 19, the first part program will be organised online while preparing to have all participants in Livingstone. There are no costs attached to the program itself.
But participants must raise approximately 750 US$ that would cover their leaving expenses, food, and local transportation.
Non-resident participants must bear their travel costs to and from Livingstone and their living cost for the duration of the program.
LoCA will subsidise all of the double-occupancy accommodation costs during the lab periods. A single room or accommodation outside the lab periods can be requested but comes at an additional cost to the participant. (note that will change when LoCA’s facilities are finished)
Participants are encouraged to apply for funding from their home countries or other sources to support their fees, travel and living expenses.
Several possible resources for funding for African applicants are as follows:
Pro Helvetia in Johannesburg and Cairo: http://www.prohelvetia.ch/Johannesburg
Prince Claus Fund- British Council https://princeclausfund.org/mobility-fund-2 Goethe Institutes in your respective countries
British Council in your respective countries
NOTE: We advise you to apply for travel funding whether or not your participation in the program has been confirmed to not miss the application deadlines.
Art Moves Africa (AMA): www.artmovesafrica.org
The African Arts Trust (TAAT), based in Kenya, eligible to artists from East Africa: http://www.theafricanartstrust.org/
About Livingstone Office for Contemporary Arts
LoCA (Livingstone Office for Contemporary Arts) is a non-profit library and research centre based in Livingstone, Zambia, with artist-initiated mini- Labs run under its WOK (Worker on Knowledge) program. A collective/Collaborative platform for reflections and an experimental think-tank, exploring histories (colonial histories, social and political histories and their legacies) and how they relate to language and contemporary art in a local and international context. LoCA’s overall goal is to raise awareness, facilitate and promote Zambian contemporary art, African art history, and research. LoCA already has built up networks of African artists and art organisations on the African continent, some that have been very instrumental or part of our conceptualisation period.LoCA is part of the RAIN Network of the Rijksakademie of Amsterdam. https://www.rijksakademie.nl/NL/kunstenaars/rain/
Click on the link below to apply
https://forms.gle/FjLdUSxx5ThHi5gB7
