CAPACETE will launch a new one-year program in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for up to 12 international participants dedicated to research and practice in the arts and critical thought. It will start its first edition in March 2015. Thought is action.

Vision
Our globalized contexts are structured by an unequal social distribution of labour and wealth, increasingly moulded by speculative market-based economics. Many of today’s cultural manifestations are large-scale events that are too often either directed at a generic public or a restricted elite. This reduces and neutralizes the concrete ethical and political reach of art, as well as its potential for fostering discussion and inspiring other ways of working, thinking, relating, and living.

Our intention is to build situations and develop strategies that provide a concrete and actual alternative to this state of affairs. Our program is designed to reflect the cross-disciplinary character of contemporary aesthetic practices, by working with artists and thinkers whose endeavors articulate the theoretical world with artistic presentations in several formats and dynamics and for different audiences. By challenging the actual state of culture, economy and education, our primary function will embrace self-organized, artist-run, participatory and collaborative modes of action as a fundamental part of the content and structure of its activities.

How to apply
Applications are made only through the Registry: [email protected]

Application form and detailed information on the program can be found at www.capacete.net.

Deadline for applications: 15 May

Program
12 participants will be selected for the program. Our aim is to reserve four positions for Brazilians, four for South Americans, and four for the rest of the world. The duration of the program is ten months, from the 1st of March to the 20th of December, with a one-month break in July.

The program is designed as a fluid and adaptive platform of exchange between the participants and the lecturers and advisors. The program will offer nine seminars given by nine lecturers from different backgrounds. Seminars will extend from three days to up to five days duration. Each lecturer will also do a public talk open to the main public. In addition, different talks, presentations and events will be organized throughout the year with other guest lecturers.

One of the ambitions of our program is to have each yearly program culminate in a collective project, designed by the participants, one that can take on any number of forms (presentation, performance, publication, exhibition, seminar etc.). However, in keeping with the participative logic of our project, rather than frame this as a requirement, we prefer to conceive of it as a potential whose actualization will be decided by the participants themselves.

Participants are also encouraged to develop individual projects. Use of the facilities of CAPACETE resort office and exhibition space and other infrastructure will be made available for such projects, and contact with local institutions and agents will also be facilitated. The program will organize trips to different sites of interests in accordance with the selected group of participants (walks, seminars in different sites); and for this, will collaborate with similar organizations in Brazil and South America.

Studio visits with local and visiting professionals, as well as visits to the studios of local artists will also be organized. It is important to note that CAPACETE is not a studio-based program. Work facilities are available and can be organized on a case-by-case basis, but designated workspaces are not automatically provided for each participant.

Advisers and lecturers for 2015
Andrea Fraser, Suely Rolnik, Amilcar Packer, Helmut Batista, Carla Zaccagnini, Daniela Castro, Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino, Ricardo Basbaum, Bik van der Pol, Cristoph Keller and Jorge Menna Barreto. For the complete program of the seminars and biographies please check our website: www.capacete.net.

Main advisers: Amilcar Packer, Manuela Moscoso and Helmut Batista will follow and contribute with the participants during the whole program by the means of several meeting over the year. These advisers will also offer seminars and talks in the yearly program.

Guest lecturers: CAPACETE will also invite artists, theoreticians, curators and other collaborators from different backgrounds to propose courses, seminars, or other forms of exchange with the participants along the year. CAPACETE will keep an open dialogue with the participants, considering their interest and goals, even with respect to inviting relevant guests.

To help participants finance their stay in Rio de Janeiro during the program CAPACETE will agency working possibilities with artists such as Antônio Dias, Luiz Zerbini, Ernesto Neto, Laura Lima, Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, Daniel Steegmann, Chelpa Ferro, Rosangela Rennó, Marcos Chaves, Arto Lindsay, etc.

For further information, please contact:
Helmut Batista: [email protected]

Originaly published by art&education