KEM SCHOOL 2024: OPEN CALL
KEM SCHOOL 2024: OPEN CALL
We’re excited to launch the open call for Kem School 2024 - a queer-feminst educational program, performative process of learning & unlearning and a reflection on collective forms of resistance.
As part of the 4th edition we will once again invite participants to develop their individual artistic practices through collective and performative action.
The School’s program will focus on experimental social choreographies. We will endeavour to collectively imagine new tools for research and activism, adjacent to queer-feminist methodologies. We will consider the current crisis of agency and the need for a mobilisation of bodies and the search for new forms of collective resistance that result from it. How can we be together in times of crisis? What reparative strategies can we collaboratively devise? How can we practice collective care? We will touch upon dark ecologies, new materialism and queer quantum physics. Departing from the paradigms of atomised existence and artistic production, we will speculate about affirmative configurations of the future.
Kem School will provide an infrastructure for work and play, alongside a program of metheoring, workshops, seminars and other formats led by a fantastic group of artists and activists, such as Alicja Czyczel, Jagna Nawrocka, Liz Rosenfeld, Ian Kaler and Ania Nowak. Participants of the program will be invited to engage in developing methods of collective, critical and embodied knowledge production.
This year’s program will be divided into 4 blocks:
Block I: What are queer pedagogies? (led by Kem & Alicja Czyczel)
Blok II: Performative Ins, Outs and Ins (led by Liz Rosenfeld & Alicja Czyczel)
Blok III: Open rehearsal (led by Ian Kaler & Alicja Czyczel)
Blok IV: “Democracy, you’re breaking my heart!” (led by Ania Nowak & Alicja Czyczel)
Drawing from the experience of previous editions and in search of new ones, during the Kem School program we will collectively probe at questions such as:
How can we embody resistance through movement? What forms could queer schools and pedagogies take on? What bodies are considered socially valid and how can we defy those norms? What forms of community allow us to practice touch, awareness and multisensorial perception? How to touch movement? What is the meaning of art in times of crisis? What forms could somatic solidarity take?
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
WHO IS KEM SCHOOL FOR?
The 4th edition of Kem School will engage a group of 12-15 participants living or working in Poland. This group will be carefully selected through our open call process, into which we invite queer artists, performers, creaters, researchers and/or activists. The program is open to people with varying degrees of experience, both beginners and established, interested in further developing their practice through choreographic, performative and collective methodologies.
Participants should::
have sufficient knowledge of Polish and English in order to communicate in group exercises*;
Be available within the School timeframes (see below);
Have an interest in interacting with the public;
Have some experience or an active interest in working collaboratively in a group of people with different lived experiences;
Be open to experiment with a variety of embodied artistic practices and pedagogical formats;
Have an artistic practice or interest in expanded notions of choreography, performance, queer studies and intersectional feminism
*workshops will take place in both Polish and English. If you do not feel confident in one or both of these languages, we nevertheless encourage you to apply. Depending on the needs that emerge in the group, we will try to provide support with translations.
Kem School is not fully accessible to people with disabilities - working on providing accessible programmes is a lengthy process, which we are nonetheless currently engaged in. We encourage people with disabilities to apply - all applications will be considered separately and we will be searching for solutions to help you take part in this year’s school. If you would lke to consult with us before you apply, please send us an e-mail at school@kemwarsaw.com
There is no age requirement or professional or academic pre-requisites. Kem School is free of charge.
WHEN AND WHERE?
Block I: 18 - 21.07 2024
(Jasna 10 Świetlica Krytyki Politycznej, Warsaw)
Block II: 7 - 11.08 2024
(Teatr Cinema, Michałowice [Piechowice])
Block III: 20 - 25.08 2024
(TR, Warsaw)
Block IV: 12 - 15.09 2024
(Jasna 10 Świetlica Krytyki Politycznej, Warszawa)
During this time we will be implementing a creative research process, the effects of which will be a series of collectively devised activities and one open rehearsal, created in collaboration with Ian Kaler.
Kem School will take place in Warsaw, except for Block II during which we will travel to Michałowice (Piechowice). A portion of the costs related to this trip (travel and accommodation) will have to be covered by the participants (approximately 600PLN).
The whole program will around 120 hours. We plan to work 7 hours a day, with a lunch break. We ask you to take your availability during this time into consideration when applying.
HOW TO APPLY?
Fill in the open call application, which you can find here
If you have any questions, send us an e-mail at school@kemwarsaw.com
We await your applications until the end of the 13th of May < 3
We will publish the results of the open call by the end of May.
Yours,
Kem
***
This project is co-financed by the city of Warsaw within the framework of the project “JASNA 10: Społeczna Inicjatywa Kultury”
TR Warszawa, British Council and The Austrian Cultural Forum are partners of this project
Since 2021 Kem School operates as an invitation to collaborate on devising choreographic and performative tools and strategies that position artistic research and practice within the register of embodied experience and in relation to current socio-political conditions.
You can read more about our last edition here:
https://www.kemwarsaw.com/en/events/kem-school-2023-summary