Re-locate

Apartment Project is an Istanbul based, artist run organization, which is active since 1999. It has been initiated with the aim of providing artists opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration as well as offering an independent platform to support the emergence of contemporary art in Turkey. Since the very beginning Apartment Project has been host to various performances, installations, exhibitions, happenings and events. Between the May 2011 and November 2011 Apartment Project will be hosting an interactive studio project Re-Locate. Re-Locate project is composed of a series of workshops in order to encourage the artistic collaboration and network.

Re-Locate aims to address the historical fact of compulsory population exchanges in the Balkan region, which took place between two world wars, changing borders and possibilities to create newer bonds through artistic dialogue. The shared history within the regions; Plovdiv-Bulgaria, Athens-Greece, Skopje-Macedonia and Prishtina-Kosovo, provides a basis to establish a mutual platform to research both about common history and develop a cultural understanding on various levels. Within these frames the artists will be re-locating their practice on newer grounds besides experiencing the various borders physically.

Taking place in 4 destinations, workshops will encourage participant artists to develop works through their artistic researches, encounters with the visited areas, as well as supporting the networking among the region. The partners of the project are Art Today Association Center for Contemporary Art Plovdiv, NOVA MELANCHOLIA (Non-profit organization of Performances and Film Productions) Athens, Line Initiative and Movement Skopje and Stacion Centre for Comtemporary Art Prishtina.

The project is composed of 2 parts;

1st part is the workshop period, which is an experimental studio work with artists from various backgrounds (selected by Apartment Project) in interaction with the local artists, writers and curators.

2nd part is the residency period. Apartment Project will host 4 artists from each of the partner organizations for a residency period of one month in Istanbul.

After the workshop and the residency, Re-locate project will be concluded with an exhibition in Istanbul. A catalogue composed of the artists’ works; their interactions and the documentation of the process will be published and introduced in conjunction with the exhibition.

Re-Locate project is kindly supported by X-OP - eXchange of art operators and is a gradually growing network of artists, researchers, operators, producers and centers with the aim to establish European platform for creation of art and exchange. With its places, spaces and user oriented technological infrastructure it fosters mobility of artists, theoreticians and executives. It is built to strengthen pan-European and global collaboration, common production, and interdisciplinary approach to art.

More about X-OP project is on http://www.x-op.eu/