The European Pavilion has firmly established itself as the premier platform facilitated by the European Cultural Foundation for using arts and culture to spark new thinking around contemporary Europe and proposed pathways forward. Artists, cultural organizers, researchers and local communities are asked to speculate freely on Europe’s most pertinent questions.
Past editions have manifested impactful projects in cities such as Rome that examined pressing topics like diversity, shared heritage and political change through installations, performances and discussions. Over 40 partner institutions have participated in the initiative directly engaging publics.
For the upcoming edition of 2024, the European Cultural Foundation delved into 39 submissions from around the continent before selecting five finalists from the most compelling proposals. Now, candidate organizations must present their blueprints to an expert jury over the coming months, with one set to receive €500,000 to actualize their reimagining of Europe on a grand stage.
2024 finalists aim to harness the potency of cultural practices to reshape understandings and spark vital conversations on critical intersections of identity, climate, mobility and political change. The European Cultural Foundation jury's selection in January will kickstart a monumental project re-envisioning the continent through experimental cultural cooperation across borders.
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Italy’s Cittadellarte and OGR Torino’s FAILLE initiative want to delve deeply into the meanings of Europe’s internal borderlands. The project centers on the Insubric line tracing the Italy-Switzerland frontier, an area at the heart of debates over migration flows.
Four partner organizations inhabiting this sub-Alpine region will each host artist residencies for developing original works reflecting on the territories’ layered histories of human and more-than-human exchange over centuries.
The resulting outputs—including exhibitions at OGR Torino and Fondazione Pistoletto alongside an academic publication—seek to reframe contemporary perspectives by emphasizing the area’s ancestral qualities of union transcending today’s rigid national divisions.
You can see a video presentation of the project: Here
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Credit; antiwarcoalition.art
The antiwar coalition, Art’s cross-border proposal envisions intersecting online and offline exhibitions bringing together artists, institutions and activists with hopes of a future built on democratic diversity and freedom. Taking up the concept of networks rather than hierarchies as an organizing principle, connected programs will unfold simultaneously in places like Kharkiv and Amsterdam.
A specially designed online platform aims to grant all visitors real-time access to experience this reimagining of Europe from any location, establishing new opportunities for decentralized yet equal participation in cultural cooperation and dialogue.
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Credit: Stichting Pássaros | espaço agora now - Illustration by Siniša Ilić.
Stichting Pássaros | espaço agora now leads a consortium that brings their ambitious plans for four boats sailing Europe’s waterways over 28 days to life. Each vessel will focus on a thematic residency “performing” a reflection on themes tied to nature, politics and humanity as they float between communities. Serving as roving studios, the watercraft aim to spark meandering discussions among diverse boat-borne creatives and citizens encountered along rivers like the Danube, Rhine and Tagus before converging upon Lisbon harbor. Here, a three-day culminating event will share out the fluid outcomes of this riverine journey contemplating Europe as an innately interconnected network sustained by the natural veins of its landscapes.
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'Space of Togetherness' Credit: NEON
Taking the city of Athens as a lens, NEON’s monthslong program will use contemporary art and hosting public programs to explore how notions of identity, mobility and rights shape lived experiences across communities. An anchor exhibition and residency project called The AfroGreeks lays thoughtful groundwork, while a constellation of artists, researchers, activists and policymakers will grapple with topics like racism, social issues and migration. Complementing these initiatives, diaNEOsis think tank will generate policy recommendations informed by the artistic dialogues to enact change. NEON’s proposal unpacks pathways toward more inclusive and equitable expressions of togetherness by facilitating challenging discussions on belonging within one of Europe's cosmopolitan hubs.
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Credit: LABoral Art and Industrial Creation Centre
LABoral Art Centre offers a months-spanning residency experience kicking off with artists boarding trains at home stations across the continent. Their five-week journey will develop contributions for Utopia is Not an Island through studio-like installations unfolding across partners like Brunnenpassage and Transmediale before arriving in Gijón. There, from September 2024 to April 2025, over 2300 square meters will transform into an “open studio” space harnessing various artistic languages—from process-based to participatory—to prototype possible futures through the lenses of diversity, climate policy and concepts of perpetual change. Multifaceted public programs aim to spark imaginations toward remaking Europe as a sustainable haven comprising not isolation but the connection between all manners of people and places.
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Main photo credit: Exhibition by Michelangelo Pistoletto, Cittadellarte, c a l c
