THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSIONS!
THE CALL FOR ARTISTS FOR THE 2022 FESTIVAL IS NOW CLOSED.
ANNOUNCEMENTS OF SELECTED ARTISTS WILL BE MADE VIA EMAIL AND ON THE TNOC FESTIVAL WEBSITE AT THE END OF FEBRUARY.
After such positive reactions to embedded artists in the 2019 festival (Paris) and the 2021 (virtual) festival, it is our pleasure to once again invite artists to take part in The Nature of Cities Festival 2022. Last year’s festival welcomed 2200 participants from 72 countries, including 80 exhibiting artists from 33 countries. This year the festival continues as an online, global, interdisciplinary gathering for greener cities for people and nature, and we welcome artists from all disciplines to participate.
The arts program, curated by the Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Cultures (FRIEC), is calling for artists of all disciplines who seek to radically imagine sustainable cities for the future. Artists will have opportunities both to present their work, and if they wish, to interact with the global interdisciplinary audience of ecological changemakers through artist-led sessions. Both artwork and sessions will be presented alongside keynotes and discussions during main plenary events, or within the virtual world built for The Nature of Cities Festival.
Who are we? The Nature of Cities (TNOC) is a small, largely volunteer-driven nonprofit organization with a broad international reach. We create transdisciplinary, publicly available programs, events, knowledge, and engagements for making cities more resilient, sustainable, livable, and just. You can visit the 2021 Festival to get an idea of our approach.
We will be accepting work on a rolling basis until 30 November 2021. We are looking forward to your work!
Yours in Art and Nature,
Patrick M. Lydon (Daejeon) & Carmen Bouyer (Paris)
TNOC Arts Editors
Important Dates
30 November 2021 (Midnight EST) — Submission deadline
Early December — Notifications of acceptance sent to applicants
January 2022 — Festival program to be announced
29-31 March 2022 — The Nature of Cities Festival
Jury Members
Invited Jurors
Paul Currie, senior professional officer of urban systems
ICLEI Africa, Cape Town, South Africa
Azusa Hashimoto, curator
National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
Robin Lasser, artist, professor of art
San Jose State University, San Jose, United States
Baixo Ribeiro, director
Galeria Choque Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil
Tanya Ruka, artist, designer, founder
Fog & Moon Studio & Region Net Positive, Te Whānganui-a-Tara (Wellington), Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Nezaket Tekin, photographer, professor of photography
Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Fine Arts, Izmir, Turkey
Festival Arts Programming Directors
Carmen Bouyer, arts curator at The Nature of Cities
artist, Paris, France
Patrick M. Lydon, arts editor at The Nature of Cities
artist, director, City as Nature, Daejeon, Korea & Osaka, Japan
What to Submit
There are multiple categories for submissions below, including Art Happenings, Short Documentary, and Sessions. Please read through the descriptions, and follow the links to submit your work and ideas. You may submit to multiple categories, however, please limit yourself to a single submission in each category.
Accepted artists will be encouraged to interact with festival attendees in some way during the festival. This could be through a skills-sharing workshop, seed session, or Q&A session, performance, or something yet to be determined. This interaction is not part of the initial submission process, and the curators will work directly with selected artists to facilitate their interactive component.
We can not offer stipends for work this year, however all selected artists will receive a free VIP entry ticket to the entire festival. Specific meetings will also be designed, throughout the event, to connect artists with art organizations and potential collaborators within The Nature of Cities network.
ART HAPPENINGS
We welcome Art Happening submissions as video files (including Film, Music, Animation, Poetry, Spoken Word, Theater, Performance, Dance, or any other genre as expressed through video). We are looking specifically for works that will nurture The Nature of Cities Festival programming with unique viewpoints that consider how humans and our cities can be woven together with the rest of nature.
Artworks in this category will be presented to global audiences at The Nature of Cities Festival, during the main plenary talks, as well as within various virtual arts spaces during the conference.
Accepted file formats: A single MPEG or MOV video file, in SD or HD resolution
Length: 3 to 6 minutes
File size: less than 500MB
SHORT DOCUMENTARY
Short documentaries to be exhibited virtually in the Festival lobby or virtual garden space. Documentaries may be on any subject within the broad mission of The Nature of Cities, including but not limited to science, design, equity, planning, community, climate, resilience, food, art, and so on. Both short films and excerpts of longer works are accepted, although excerpts must be able to stand alone as a work on their own.
Accepted file formats: A single MPEG or MOV video file, in SD or HD resolution
Length: less than 10 minutes
File size: less than 750MB
SESSIONS
Separately from the Art Happenings and Documentary categories, all artists working in any medium are welcome to submit session proposals. Accepted sessions will be part of the main conference programming, alongside sessions from various other practitioners and experts in all fields. Your session can be practical (skills session) or exploratory (seed session) or anything in-between. Click here to learn more about session types.
