Artists are invited to submit their works for an online project and exhibition organised by Emergent Art Space in collaboration with the emergent artist/curator Maria Di Gaetano.

ABOUT "UNLOCKED"

"Unlocked" is an experimental project which intends to create synergies among young artists, breaking barriers of time and space, reality, words, and media, giving space only to the intrinsic meaning of art as an intuitive and aesthetic way of knowing, - that involves mind and feelings and - it is worldwide shareable.

Being in lock down has had a strong impact on our social and economic life but first and foremost in our way of dealing with our emotions. A similar strong impact will have the end of the lock down - in the near future. Lots of people feel drained and oppressed and even scared about the future. "Unlocked" aims to catch an emotional moment in between the end of the lock down and the beginning of the new "normality". "Unlocked" wants to recognise, extrapolate, and transform feelings into art and communication.

ABOUT EMERGENT ART SPACE

Founded in 2012, Emergent Art Space is an international non-profit organization based in San Francisco, California. Its mission is to give exposure to young artists around the world and to promote cross-cultural dialogue, exchange, and communication through art. We welcome artists in all fields of visual arts, still in school or under 30.

We believe that the visual language of art has the power to communicate across geographic and cultural distances, to open new perspectives on our experience of the world, and to facilitate the understanding of experiences and traditions different from our own.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

5 artists will be selected based on their 3 works submitted. The weekend after the selection we will have a zoom meeting to know each other and start the project together. Time to be agreed with the artists.

We will try to discuss and work with these questions:

- What is art for you?
- How did you experience the pandemic?
- Is it true that Art "cleans from the soul the dust of every day’s life?"
- Are you concerned about the future?
- What kind of feelings did you experience during the "lockdown"?
- What kind of feelings are you experiencing now after the "lockdown"?
- "Unlocked". What does this word mean for you? Let’s define it. -reality -art -barriers -freedom.

WHAT WE WILL BE DOING:

As the idea was born during the uncertainty of the post lockdown, it was thought best to develop it online. It would be great therefore, to meet up all together in person later on or when the restrictions will ease to put our creative minds together under the stunning London’s sky!

Taking the questions above as guideline, this project will ask you to examine and assess your own feelings and thoughts in relation to your life, the way you make art and how we can express them. We will be working together, creating, and operating as follows:

1. We will create a private group on Facebook among us, in order to easily get in touch and be reachable.

2. We will develop an artistic research practice based on open talks on Zoom to know better the way we think, create, and work.

3. No strict time, media or exercises will be imposed, but as little as punctuality and reliability will be asked in order to make sure everything works well for everyone and the project will go ahead smoothly.

4. Since the project aims to put together words and creativity, we will be writing some small texts and creating some artworks.

5. The concept/theme we will be working on will be around the meaning of being "Unlocked".

6. Instructions will be given to everyone, but on-going ideas or changes from the artists will be discussed and considered.

7. The meetings will last 2 weekends. Ideally Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons. Time to be agreed. It would be great if we stick with these days although flexibility will be given according to our own needs and it will be discussed and agreed on by all participating artists.

8. At the ends of our 2 weekends’ meetings, we will all have - an additional 2 weeks to prepare ourselves for the online exhibition. The content of the exhibition will be all or some of our works, our texts put together as a small catalogue/magazine and one of two of our zoom meetings (if everyone agrees). Everything will be shared on the Emergent Art Space website, which is supporting this project and
cultural dialogues among artists from all over the world. Everyone will be free to share the link to their own website, social and platform. A participation certificate will be given to everyone.

9. The 5 artists who will be working on this project will be then invited to be part of the amazing world of the Emergent Art Space’s platform.

10. I hope you will be joining me. Free yourself and relax! We will be a bunch of people who love art and want to communicate something with it to the world

SUBMISSION AND SELECTION:

Only London based artists between 18-30 years old can apply at this time. (If the project – is successful, opening it internationally later in the year will be considered).

The project itself, submission, selection, exhibition, and participation are all FREE OF CHARGE.

Please provide:

• Your contact email and artist statement (max 300 words)
• 3 artworks made in the “pandemic years” 2019-2020/2021. All media accepted. (JPG Format only)

Selection

5 artists only will be selected in order to proceed with the project, and they will be featured on the EAS website. The artists not selected for the project will have a mention with a link to their websites or social media page.

Deadlines:

Works need to be sent please not later than 7th June 2021.

Only the 5 selected artists will be contacted by 13th June 2021.

After that – the selected artists and I will choose the weekends we can meet (Zoom most likely) and work on the project together.

Emergent Art Space https://emergentartspace.org

Please remember, this project in its entirety is completely free of charge!