Web Residencies »Solidarity is a verb«

Selecting proposals out of 150 submissions for a call on »Solidarity as a verb« summoned us to align the criteria guidelines with the concept. It was expected that projects be relevant to the call, as well as embody concerns and urgencies of our time, and stem from different localities. While the concept of solidarity tends to be fixed to a limited number of interpretations and uses, in our selection we aimed to foreground a diversity of artistic approaches and methodologies. Some projects take solidarity as a governing principle for setting up new digital infrastructure and support structures, or as a form of artistic engagement with a community. Other projects prompt discussions, encounters, and historical research that form the basis of critical and imaginary accounts of solidarity. We have looked for proposals that could take a palpable form or direction within the limited amount of six- to eight-week web residencies and the available financial and curatorial resources. We privileged continuity as an institutional and curatorial value to extend collaborations as well as to support projects that started or might outlive the Web Residencies. And lastly, we committed as a jury to work closely with all the residents in developing their proposals and fostering moments of communal encounter. While each project is very distinct, there are overlaps in approaches and interests, and we are hopeful at the outset of this series of residencies that these commonalities and differences will infuse the call with collective energy and imagination of what solidarity can mean and do in these times of change.

The jury was made up of Anca Rujoiu (curator of the 16th call for Web Residencies), Radu Lesevschi (Arc Bucharest), and Thomas Dumke & Denise Helene Sumi (Digital Solitude program).

Web Residents »Solidarity is a verb«

Digital Solidarity Platform for the Global South
More of Us | Syafiatudina / Yogyakarta, Indonesia | Carolina Campuzano / Medellín, Colombia | Lauren von Gogh / Johannesburg, South Africa | Erik Tlaseca / Mexico City, Mexico | Veronique Poverello / Lumbumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo | Rogelio Vazquez, Mexico City, Mexico | Teesa Bahana / Kampala, Uganda

Carolina Campuzano from Medellín, Lauren von Gogh from Johannesburg, Syafiatudina from Yogyakarta, Erik Tlaseca and Rogelio Vazquez from Mexico City, Veronique Poverello from Lumbumbashi, and Teesa Bahana from Kampala are More of Us. As a translocal ecosystem, More of Us currently works on developing an online platform to further engage with art practices and processes of social change, as well as work with a variety of communities to share the spirit of collective action.

Swarm
Distributed Cognition Cooperative | Sasha Shestakova / Moscow, Russia, and Anna Engelhardt / London, UK

Concerned with algorithmic and political infrastructure as a form of politics, DCC grounds its practice in writing, manufacturing, and maintaining digital architectures from a decolonial perspective. With developing the platform Swarm, a supportive peer-review environment to help marginalized artists, researchers, and other practitioners develop their portfolio or raise funds, DCC creates infrastructural conditions to break the vicious circle maintained by institutional politics.

Hunger, Inc.: Solidarity Through Meals
Elia Nurvista / Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Together with local communities and collectives, Indonesian artist and activist Elia Nurvista will create a »Solidarity kit,« a lexicon that consists of stories about and local recipes that can be made from ingredients that can be collected in the region around Yogyakarta or are affordable to obtain. By sharing this local knowledge, Nurvista relates to significant strategies for living in limited conditions, and methods to learn from each other.

Castle of Crossed Destinies: When the Sonic Becomes Physical
Aouefa Amoussuvi / Berlin, Germany | Sasha Engelman / London, UK | Olivia Berkowicz / Göteborg, Sweden

In a series of conversations on the practices and histories of tarot reading, amateur radio, and raw cacao, these modest devices and rituals became vehicles for untangling colonial processes, gendered notions of technology, and transgenerational memory. Through the Web Residency, Castle of Crossed Destinies will test new formats and aim to reach diverse audiences while building solidarity through analogue, digital, and political methodologies.

23 August – A Hyper/Text and Archival Work on Transnational Solidarity
Simina Neagu / London, UK

A forgotten episode of transnational solidarity recounted through archival materials and words of fiction. Taking a cue from the 23 August Stadium built for this event, Simina Neagu attempts to trace back a partly forgotten history and start a conversation on transnational solidarity between the Global South and the »Global East.«  The festival, dedicated to anticolonial struggles, was attended by Caribbean political and cultural activists John la Rose and Irma la Rose (née Hilaire).

A Zero Hours Worker’s Fate
Simona Dumitriu and Ramona Dima / Malmö, Sweden

»Is there free will and can solidarity exist in precarious work conditions?« Sweden-based artist duo Simona Dumitru and Ramona Dima (a.k.a. Claude & Dersch) will tackle questions around precarious work conditions and fatal dependencies as a result of zero-hours contracts. During the residency, they aim to produce the written and filmed Document of Fates, followed by in situ meetings with the local union and migrant communities to further engage with and contribute to improved and solidarity-based working conditions for everyone.