Photo by BBC Travel/Eliot Stein.
Open call – International shepherd’s culture project 2023
Learning and teaching opportunity
Art Related and Inter Alia are calling out to artists and scientists interested in working with shepherd communities in Antia, Greece and The Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria. The participants should be willing to learn about the whistled language ‘Sfyria’ and/or the ‘Kaba Gayda’ bagpipe.
The selected participants will spend a week in either of the locations in an open format workshop. They will exchange knowledge and practice, gather material in situ, communicate with the locals and learn from a master whistler or bagpipe player/craftsman.
After completion of the workshop, the participants will be given three months to produce a work to be featured in two week-long exhibitions in Athens and Sofia. The purpose of these events is to transfer the knowledge generated during the workshops to a wider public in the capitals.
The project wishes to critically examine the interconnectedness of the two regions as a part of a wider Mediterranean cultural area. Its purpose is to gain an insight into forms of communication transmedial by nature, positioned between speaking, singing, and playing an instrument. It seeks to study various modes of thinking and to approach the cultural phenomena from a linguistic, anthropological, philosophical, holistic, and purely aural/physical standpoint.
The whistled language of Antia and the particular form of bagpipe of The Rhodope Mountains are unique cultural expressions of the south-east European region. Even though both localities share a common historical development, the ethnographical and anthropological conditions have led to the development of unique means of expression. Understanding both communities and their aesthetics, materiality, and politics, all of which contributed to the emergence of the cultural phenomena, will provide valid points for understanding music and language as mediums shaping our contemporary society.
The application is open to artists and scientists of all fields, who have worked with the topic of the project or wish to do so in their future practice.
Three artists and three scientists will be chosen for each of the locations. Travel expenses, accommodation for the workshop and working fee of 1000 Euro per participant will be provided.
