THE ENCLOSED GARDEN (TEG) is an international itinerant artistic research, residency program, and exhibition that travels every two years in a new country. Founded on the principles of learning, creating, and healing with others, the festival grounds its mission in collaborating with women artists, researchers, and artisans in countries where women are less supported for their creative and psychological journey.
TEG is produced by Heroines’Wave platform, Goethe Institut, Alliance Française. It offers 10 participants from various cultures, backgrounds, and disciplines to delve deeper into their practice and challenge the concept of collective creations on intimate taboo topics. We aim to establish a different culture of being and working together from different social, political, psychological, and artistic environments. Therefore, since 2019, our methodology of residency and exhibition has constantly evolved based on our experience and the feedback we receive from our program participants and the audience.
After completing one TEG edition online (Worldwide 2020) and two live (Georgia 2019, Thailand 2021), TEG4 will embark on a new chapter in Kyrgyzstan, in September 2023. A series of fieldwork was conducted in 2022 in Central Asia by members of the international network HEROINES’WAVE (Celia Stroom, Kim Wichera, Aurelie Brousse, Altyn Kapalova, Saadat Aitalieva, Anja Salzer, Micayla Smith, Kayla Elrod, Anna Frick), a new Open Call for women is open until 05.05 – 23.59 CET.
Breaking a series of established rules about what exhibition, creative processes, and residency should be, TEG experiments with a new format based on collective sharing and empowerment. They create a night-time exhibition that lasts for three nights.
Every hour, the audience, a group of 20 people, immerse themselves in a multidisciplinary exhibition where 10 artists paint, draw, sing, dance, share videos, texts, play live soundscapes and build up installations for 6 hours per night. The exhibition is blooming, hour after hour, adding up to 18 hours of a live show. The curator calls this format an EXPLOSITION* (more infos here).
Beforehand, artists are offered a two weeks workshop program, isolated in nature, to be physically, artistically, and psychologically trained. The residency seeks to initiate bold discussions that shake and shape the collective “garden,” asking what could happen if we look into our realities from different perspectives. By bringing together creative practitioners from different strands of life, countries, and art fields, we create an opportunity for the collision and exchange of ideas, bringing forward themes that concern our psychological development and our relationship to nature.
TEG offers a time and a space, far from our daily life, to focus on topics and practices that we never dared to try, to simply bring all of us, the participants and the local audience, to “the fence of our garden.” For a month, we challenge our boundaries, fears, blockages and preconceptions to find collective solutions and share tips for self care and relief.
When: 31.08.23 till 27.09.23
Where : in Kyrgyzstan | Phase Residency : Issyk-Kul Lake | Phase Exhibition : Bishkek
Conditions:
> Flights, per diems, accommodation are covered by Goethe Institut.
> Workshops are offered by all the participants
> Material for creation and technical equipment are provided.
> Each artist receives a 500€ fee for exhibition participation
THEME 2023
After challenging the topic of intimacy (Georgia 2019), of isolation (Online 2020), of communication and silence (Thailand 2021), here we are going to observe, and later share, some answers to the question: Who is my body?
TO CONSIDER BEFORE APPLYING
— Fully commit to the project for the selected period.
— Open to work within the queer community.
— Multidisciplinary artist or interested by transdisciplinary approach.
— Be able to share the accommodation and the workspace with others. All participants must have an interest in working, thinking and being with peers and participate in collective activities.
— Interested by the challenge of co-creating artworks in 3 weeks.
— Offer back to the team (workshop, screening, lecture, etc).
— Ready to live in nature with no easy access to internet or shops.
A FEW WORDS from Altyn Kapalova, founder of MoFA+, the first collective of feminist and queer arts in Central Asia.
“TEG will be held in Kyrgyzstan, a country made of mountains and freedom of expression. There is a strong fem art movement which is like a multi-colored mosaic consisting of separate small art groups and individual artists working in various techniques. Having a strong tradition of craft, folk theatrical and musical performances, it is still a big challenge for Kyrgyz artists to speak through their bodies about topics tabooed in traditional culture, so this challenge promises to be an interesting collective study.”
ABOUT LAST EDITIONS
>> If you find yourself in a moment of your life when something has to change, or even be challenged,
>> If you are a multidisciplinary woman interested in working on environmental and psychological issues with ten artists from different cultures.
Find application form by clicking on the “website” button
