APPLICATION DEADLINE: 8 April 2024
Two-day online residency with a virtual visit of Athens: online workshop + publication + video screening
Date options: Sat 20 + Sun 21 April 2024 OR Sat 11 + Sun 12 May 2024.
The e-residency project addresses jewelry makers, visual artists, designers, photographers, crafters, ceramists, performers, filmmakers, art theorists who wish to dive into the greek myth of death and resurrection.
For 2,000 years, a farming community close to Athens was the spiritual center of the ancient world. Pilgrims from all over came to Eleusis* (modern-day Elefsina) to be initiated to mysteries – secret ceremonies - befriending them with death. Men, women, free people, and slaves, Greeks and foreigners watched the myth of Persephone staged and revived in the sacred site of Eleusis, and witnessed the young goddess returning from Hades.
Sacred rituals including recitation, performance, and presentation of sacred objects taught initiates the secret of immortal bliss. If it were not one of the most important religious ceremonies of the ancient world, it could have been one of the most glamorous art events of all times.
The Road to Elefsina e-Residency focuses on the myth of a girl becoming a woman and the art representations connected to it, as well as on the social background, history and concepts of the Eleusinian mysteries.
Participants of the e-Residency are challenged to explore the myth of Persephone, her sacred marriage and death, and give their own interpretation of eternal flow.
* Elefsina is European Capital of Culture (2023).
The Road To Elefsina e-Residency aims at making contact with the participants' own past through games of divination; an online oracle retrieves the missing links in each participant's artist narrative and shapes them into a powerful video script.
The program offers insight into the vast history of Greek civilization, makes it easy and approachable, and adds meaning to the e-residents’ work and art understanding.
The e-Residency program also teaches participants how to make their presentations meaningful, surprising and irresistible through words, plot, performance, objects and video.
The e-Residency addresses artists from various disciplines, placing emphasis on objects, performance, jewelry, textiles, and their special connection with mysteries of transcendence.
The mysteries of Eleusis were taught by revealing sacred objects to the initiates during the ceremony of the midnight sun. What kind of objects were shown to illustrate the meaning of life and the antidote to death is a question that remains to be answered. We can only speculate how the sacred objects would look like today to reflect sustainable values.
The Road to Elefsina encourages the participants to imagine answers to this question. It addresses the need of individual artists and artist communities for an ethical restart; it also takes into account that applied art and jewelry - art objects that can be used - can play an important role in reshaping standards and status quo symbols in times of climate change, social and political unrest.
• Watch the SMCK On Reel trailer •
The e-Residency program includes video-recorded tours in Athens and Eleusis designed for artists, online workshops on storytelling, performance, communication and video, as well as an introduction on Greek heritage. It also promotes the e-residents’ work through an online presentation, a magazine publication and participation in the SMCK On Reel video festival at Munich's international Schmuck Jewelry Week 2025.
The e-Residency takes place on a weekend (see optional dates below).)
1. e-Residency total hours: 8 hours
2. Maximum number: 8 participants per group
3. Participation fee: 300,00 euro, payable in one or two installments
Please send your application to favelab.info@gmail.com and include: a cover letter with your motivation, a recent CV or bio, your website and/or social media link(s) and your desired e-Residency date.
Application deadline is Monday, 8 April 2024.
