OPEN CALL: Counterpoint: Narrating Migration from the Periphery as Centre
THIS OPEN CALL IS NOW CLOSED
OPEN CALL Counterpoint: Narrating Migration from the Periphery as Centre
We are pleased to announce an open call in partnership with Gŵyl Arall for poets / artists from a diverse range of backgrounds to apply to take part in a new project that will explore the theme of migration through collaboration with the Poland-based Armenian poet and artist
Tatev Chakhian and Polish poet and translator Zofia Bałdyga who lives in Prague..
Deadline for applications: April 18, 2023
The project is co-financed by the European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists and aims at internationalising the careers of emerging artists through cooperation between festivals. We are looking for one Welsh literary, visual, or cross-genre artist to take part in a multilingual digital collaboration and to present their work at Gŵyl Arall festival.
Project Description
During 3-4 virtual workshops the three participating artists will collect local material relevant to the topic of migration, discuss it and reflect on local perspectives and attitudes before creating new work collaboratively and/or independently over the period of the workshops. Tatev Chakhian is the lead artist and the artist selected by our sister organisation Culture Reset, based in the Czech Republic, is Polish poet and translator Zofia Bałdyga. In Wales the selected local artist will present the work at Gŵyl Arall festival in July, including translations of Tatev’s poems into Welsh and in Prague both Tatev and Zofia will present work that had emerged from the project at the Den Poezie festival in November 2023.
Timeline
18 April: deadline for applications
25 April: selected participant will be announced.
May/June: workshops and research (exact dates to be arranged at mutually convenient times)
July 7-9 Gŵyl Arall: live / digital presentation of work
Participation fee: £200
A fee to translate up to 4 of Tatev’s poems into Welsh is included in the project budget.
An additional appearance / workshop fee to appear at Gŵyl Arall will be available subject to additional funding becoming available.
We welcome applicants from diverse backgrounds.
A PDF version of the open call in Welsh and English can be downloaded here:
GALWAD AGORED COUNTERPOINT DWYIEITHOG BILINGUAL CALL
Please send applications in English or Welsh containing the following
- a short biographical note (up to 250 words)
- a motivation statement (no more than 500 words or 2 minutes of audio/video)
- 3 examples of your work
By email to: alexandra@lit-across-frontiers.org and nici@lit-across-frontiers.org or you can upload your application through our online form here:
Background
Our joint application to the EFFEA to support Tatev Chakhian was succesful and the project is led by our long-term partner, the Maltese cultural organisation Inizjamed and their Malta Mediterranean Literature Festivaland involves the Poetry Day Festival and Culture Reset in Prague, Thraka and their Thessalian Poetry Festival in Larissa, and Literature Across Frontiers and the Caernarfon-based Gŵyl Arall Festival.
Literature Across Frontiers (LAF) has initiated and coordinated international literary and artistic cooperation projects for two decades, with many collaborative exchange residencies across Europe and beyond. We are experienced in cross-cultural work and have worked with partners in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau and Vietnam.
Profiles of writers involved in the project
Tatev Chakhian (1992, Yerevan) is a Poland-based Armenian poet, translator and visual artist. She graduated from the Faculty of Cultural Anthropology at Yerevan State University and holds a degree in International Relations and Border Studies from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan where she currently lives. After several years of collaborative poetry projects, she published her first volume of poetry titled unIDentical is an “unofficial document” which grants the reader a passage from the poet’s personal reality to the social one allowing them to wander in and between the spaces. The book was nominated for the 2018 European Poet of Freedom – the 5th edition of the Literary Award of the City of Gdansk – was published in Polish. Tatev collaborates with urban artists, filmmakers and musicians, and her paper collages have been exhibited in Armenia, Poland and Belgium, and translates and promotes Polish poetry, Iranian contemporary poetry, as well as translating from English and Russian. She is the co-editor of www.iranliter.com platform of translated Iranian literature and Arteria literary magazine in Armenia. Find out more on her official website.
Zofia Bałdyga (1987, Warsaw) is a Prague based poet and translator. She has published four collections of poetry, Passe-partout (2006), Współgłoski (2010), Kto kupi tak małe kraje (2017) and Klimat kontynentalny(2021). Her first collection written in Czech will be published in late 2023. She holds MA from Southern and Western Slavonic Studies at the University of Warsaw and is currently enrolled in social and pastoral work BA study program at the Faculty of Evangelical Theology, Charles University. She writes in Polish and Czech. She translates contemporary Czech and Slovak poetry into Polish (Milan Děžinský, Kamil Bouška, Jana Bodnárová, Marie Iljašenko, Jan Škrob, anthologies of Slovak and Czech female poets Sąsiadki [Neighbors]). In 2021 she was awarded the Literatura na Świecie prize in the category for emerging translators. Bałdyga also works as volunteer with refugees.
