The Art Of The Icon is a residency and video / comics / narrative project for visual artists, jewelers, crafters, designers, filmmakers, performers, art theorists, curators, academics who wish to explore Athens' medieval and Byzantine cultural traditions that still live on. The residency program initiates participants in understanding how to read, and be inspired by, the icon tradition, and explains concepts of time, space, eternity, providence, and divine union embedded in the visual language of Orthodox art.
Byzantine art, a highly conceptual art created by a combination of mastering ancient techniques and preparing the artist's body and mind for creative contemplation, is widely unknown to the West. Icons are intellectual and emotional bridges to the invisible world, while the sacred space becomes a stage for performing rituals of bonding between past, present and future.
The Art Of The Icon residency program includes an online introductory course into Byzantine art history, and its significance for contemporary conceptual art, Pop Art and major modern art movements, guided visits at Unesco sites, museums and Byzantine monuments, individual tips on Athens' secret addresses, a narrative, comics and video workshop in Athens, as well as curatorial and editorial advice for the realization of a creative video or comics or narrative. Participants’ videos that will be inspired by the residency program will be screened at Munich's Schmuck Jewelry Week 2025, while the comics or narrative will be published in SMCK Magazine.
Residents' work inspired by the The Art Of The Icon will also be promoted through press and social media.
Disciplines: Artists who work in the field of jewelry, object, design, sculpture, installation, performance, video, photography, textile art, ceramics, as well as filmmakers, crafters, art theorists, researchers, curators are encouraged to apply.
Application requirements: Artists must be at least 30 years of age.
Residency duration: 14 days (13 nights). The residency period begins on Monday and ends on Sunday.
Exhibition/presentation: 2 days (during the second week of the residency).
Price: 730 € / paid by the artist. The fee includes accommodation in a central Athen studio for individual artist. The fee does not include travel fares, entry tickets for museums and archaeological sites, meals, artist material or tools, print matter.
Optional residency dates in 2024:
20 May - 2 June
3 - 16 June
17 June - 30 June
Email your application with cover letter introducing yourself and stating your incentive to participate in The Art Of The Icon residency project. Include your bio/CV and website/blog or instagram or 6–8 images of your work.
Application deadline is Sunday 28 April 2024.
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