Topic: Call for Submission - PAYSAGES ÉPHÉMÈRES 2010
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
6th Paysages Éphémères - 2010
Connections to Mount Royal
Deadline for submissions: June 16, 2009
MISSION STATEMENT
Paysages Éphémères is an urban art intervention event during which time a route of ephemeral landscape interventions will be created. These interventions will serve to raise public awareness of the variety of ways in which the city as a lived space can be transformed. By transforming the city into a stage for creation, artists and designers will have a multitude of opportunities for reflection and artistic expression related to the urban space.
CONTEXT OF THE EVENT
In an economic context that is increasingly oriented towards creativity, ephemeral art interventions have become an important factor for indicating a city’s position on the world art scene. In addition to enhancing the urban environment, these interventions increase public accessibility to art and create greater exposure for the work of artists. Paysages Éphémères espouses this trend, which is taking on increasing importance within the international contemporary art scene. In Madrid, New-York, Paris, Berlin and many other major cities of the world, the installation of temporary art works has become common practice.
OBJECTIVES OF PAYSAGES ÉPHÉMÈRES
Though holding this competition and carrying out the selected projects, Paysages Éphémères aims to attain the following goals:
To increase public awareness of the diversity of potential creative landscape interventions in the urban context;
To encourage interaction between the artists, the works/interventions and the public;
To offer diverse professionals, designers and artists practicing various forms of ephemeral landscape interventions a unique urban showcase and setting for this genre of creative work;
To contribute to the advancement and the dissemination of knowledge in the field of ephemeral landscape interventions in an urban context;
To stimulate and encourage, through example, contemporary artistic creation in the field of ephemeral landscape interventions;
To contribute to the economic development of the plateau Mont-Royal area by creating a recurring cultural and tourist attraction.
THE THEME
Connections to Mount Royal
2010 – The 6th annual Paysages Éphémères focuses on connections and correspondence. Here we are en route towards Mount Royal. Throughout time this mountain has always been sacred. Today it is situated in the middle of a city surrounded by the Saint-Laurent river, “the river that walks” as the Amerindians used to say. At its foot the plateau stretches out its avenues and boulevards. Crowned with a cross, this mountain is a prominent landmark for the island of Montreal, orienting us to its high and low areas, its various neighbourhoods, its inhabitants and its passersby. At one point it is a cemetery and sanctuary, at another point it provides a site for large popular gatherings. The mountain evokes the spirit of place. Poised between reality and the imagination, its territory has defined, delineated, and qualified the urban space, from Mount Royal to the present day Montreal.
When on the path to the mountain it offers itself to us, while it permits us to see. Like a garden, it offers changing vantage points, both from the interior and exterior, from the lookout on top of the mountain to views seen from buses that cross from east to west. When on the plateau, the mountain looms in the distance. From the height of the lookout, we observe the city and even more as we find ourselves lost in this floating space, caught between heaven and earth. Whether we embrace in this place, or whether this place inspires us to embrace our history, this ancient mountain is present today with its partially obscured past that the city that has hidden little by little. And then, there is a certain perspective that leads from the mountainside towards the Olympic stadium, this triumphant vestige, resembling a ruin in reverse, which orients us and haunts the Montreal landscape. The space in between is the east-west axis of the city. Well beyond the idea of the Chemin du Roi, this historical trajectory that touches the deeply sensitive human spirit, emerges from time immemorial, day after day defined by the movement of the sun, as we move from one ritual to another, from one temple to another.
This sixth Paysages Éphémères aims to advance the domain of transient and everyday urban landscape art, and at the same time highlight the social and historic value of public space as a meeting place. Therefore a series of routes will be set up - bicycle, metro, bus or pedestrian - to guide viewers through the ephemeral landscapes constructed by the artists. These will be site-specific “lived landscapes”, and where they are installed during the time of the event, they will create places for potential exchanges with the public. Existential scenarios, these interventions will celebrate the role of art in the urban space thanks to the diverse networks of correspondence that will be established. Memory, history, myth and topography of the site will intersect through the networks of correspondence that will lead our footsteps into the city, under the city, outside of the city, into the interstices of the plateau - its vacant spaces, its back alleys, its sidewalks - during the time of transit, the time of a stopover between two stations, before taking another route.
Manon Regimbald
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The sector within which an intervention may be created includes the area situated on avenue Mont-Royal, between rue D’Iberville and boulevard Saint-Laurent, including the Place Gérald-Godin (facing the Mont-Royal metro station), le parc des Compagnons-de-Saint-Laurent (at the corner of Cartier and Mont-Royal), and all other locations or sites on the avenue (public or private, residential or commercial). Candidates may also submit projects that would take place on the streets crossing avenue Mont-Royal, providing the location is no more than 200 meters north or south of avenue Mont-Royal.
You may view pictures and drawings of the Mont-Royal Avenue area at www.paysagesephemeres.com .
The 6th Paysages Éphémères will take place in July 2010 and will continue for 21 to 28 days.
This call for submissions is open to all candidates, both professional or emerging, whose work involves a reflection on public space by the means of temporary art works or art practices that are integrated into the urban fabric.
The amount allocated to each project is $6000 (taxes extra, if applicable), including $3500 for labour and materials and $2500 in artist fee and copyright fee. Project submissions must consist of new work.
Submissions must be received AT THE LATEST BY JUNE 16, 2009, by email or by regular mail (must be postmarked no later than June 16, 2009).
Submission must include the following:
An artist’s statement (not exceeding 200 words)
A description of the project (not exceeding 200 words)
A sketch, a plan, or a photomontage of the proposed project (maximum dimensions, 11” x 17”) on paper or digital format. Please note that maquettes will not be accepted.
A curriculum vitae (maximum 5 pages)
A biobibliography of no more than 1 page (optional)
A press kit of no more than 5 pages (optional)
Digital documentation (CD or DVD) giving an overview of your work: fifteen digital images in jpeg format (not exceeding 500 dpi and 1024 x 768 pixels), numbered from 01 to 15; or a DVD audio/video recording (NTSC) (5 minutes maximum length); or a compact disc (5 minutes maximum length). The documentation must be accompanied by an image list indicating title, year, medium and dimensions. Please do not use stickers to identify your DVD/CD.
Please send your submission to:
Paysages Éphémères 2010
Soumission de projet – Project Submissions
1012 Avenue du Mont-Royal Est, bureau 101
Montréal, (Qc) CANADA
H2J 1X6
info@paysagesephemeres.com
Candidates will be informed of the committee decisions at the end of August 2009. Only successful candidates will receive a written response. Documents submitted will not be returned unless supplied with self-addressed envelope and sufficient return postage.