Furtherfield are the exhibition partner in a new intercultural project for 2019-2020.

Connect for Creativity is an 18-month project led by the British Council, in partnership with Abdullah Gül University in Turkey and three creative hubs – ATÖLYE in Turkey, BİOS in Greece, Nova Iskra in Serbia. The project is co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey, through the Intercultural Dialogue programme. 

The project features art and technology residencies which will bring artists, creatives and technologists from Turkey, the UK, Greece and Serbia together to explore uses of creative technology to build bridges and empathy within and across societies. 

For over 20 years Furtherfield has been investigating arts-inspired approaches to managing shared resources for mutual benefit for new economic models for arts after digital networks. Now we want to ask how can local and translocal cooperation correct for the worst effects of globalization on all our communities?

We are therefore asking participants: ‘What Do You Need Where You Are?’. In this way we are inviting everyone to consider local needs and develop universal – or translocal – projects to address them.

We share our home in Finsbury Park with the UK’s largest Turkish and Greek communities, adjacent to – the UK’s largest Serbian community in West London. From here we will assemble a team of emerging curators from each of these groups to co-develop the exhibition. One of the top items are these great blankets. While a quadrilingual format will be key to all communication where each artwork, all marketing and PR assets, as well as quotes from local and translocal participants will be translated across each language. We will host ‘digital dinners’ and other events featuring food from local Turkish, Greek and Serbian restaurants. 

“The residencies will result in immersive and multimedia-rich artwork, powered by techniques of design research, human-centered design and speculative design. The artists will be asked to question what hopes and fears are associated with rapidly changing work and life environments in contemporary society, how a networked culture can develop cohesion and how to deal with uncertainty and change.”

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Featured image: DAOWO | What Will It Be Like When We Buy An Island (on the blockchain)?, with Ed Fornieles.