INFRASTRUCUTURALE COMUNALE
Based on our experiences from last year’s Summer School we intend to continue exploring the overarching theme of ‘Social Architecture’ and expand it into more dimensions throughout the residency. This approach to design aims to facilitate the imagination and creation of structures that nurture social relations, considering the people, spaces, and activities involved in these interactions. Therefore, Maringotka, as the local meeting point of Maříž, not only intertwining cooking and eating together but also any social activities and engaging with the local community, is our main point of interest for the upcoming summer. The idea is to implement individually unattainable ideas and design spaces activated as local meeting points, envisioning future uses while considering their situatedness in the ecosystem. In smaller groups, we imagine to collectively develop and implement several projects, which manifest long-term uses for the future, offering the community of locals and countless individuals in the coming years a point of interaction and inspiration.
At the heart of our residency lies the concept of building. We will focus on fostering sustainable social and environmental structures to nurture ongoing cultural activity. This includes material building, social-relational building, organisational building and digital (archival) building, as well as inspiring and strengthening connections among residents, team members, the local community, and our natural environment.
We plan to preserve, repair, repurpose, improve and re-design the existing local infrastructure around the village of Maříž into a lasting environment. On the other hand, we would like to find ways of improving non-physical infrastructures in the fields of organisation, kitchen management, but also archiving and possibilities of making already accumulated materials accessible in our Research Archive.
RESIDENCY 2024
The foundation of the unique culture that has developed in Maříž over the past 30 years is the legacy of the 90s collective that founded the creative centre ‘Besídka’ with a Summer School programme aiming to revitalize the area of Slavonice and Maříž after the 1989 Velvet Revolution. With this movement, the once abandoned village on the border to Austria was re-generated and became very lively - especially during summers when people from various cultural backgrounds and disciplines come together for spiritual experiments since the re-establishing of the Summer School programme in 2019.
After the last Summer School, we were asking ourselves how this community which grew over the past five years can ‘persist’ beyond a month of shared experience, which is sadly just a temporary annual re-enactment? - So far, this became possible through projects such as the `Habitat Ensemble` and the `Spiritual Cooking and Recipes in Practice` Publication which originated in the summertime and extended over the year culminating in small events and outcomes associated with Leštnice. Together with new inputs that work with the specific context of the place and aims of Leštnice as a community, we would love to find ‘solutions’ by developing new projects during the residency which have the potential to continue beyond and induce new satellites.
Differing from the Summer School, the residency doesn’t include workshops with external specialists or any fixed programme. It is up to us to implement our ideas within a loose structural framework set from 5.-31.08.2024 in Maříž and its surrounding satellites.
At the 27-day long residency, we will organically engage in interdisciplinary exchange and intuitive design to inspire the collective transformation and innovation of Maříž's communal spaces. Together, we will design a public showcase to share emerged projects and reflect on their impact. During and beyond the residency, support and connections with local partners will continue, leaving a lasting legacy in the community.
WHAT WE OFFER
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Access to diverse workspaces, tools and materials (for example woodworking tools, pottery wheels, sewing machines, sound recorders, cameras, a well-equipped kitchen, a large outdoor work area, and a material bank including fabrics, clay, paper, ropes, wire or wood.)
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All residents will be offered accommodation across several properties around Maříž, including access to shared bathrooms.
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Three daily meals will be provided - from our experience, a collaborative approach to cooking fosters a sense of community and shared responsibility. As this lies at the core of our community, we would like to encourage residents to participate in the cooking process alongside our cooks and team.
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Your basic needs like the aforementioned accommodation and daily meals are covered by our project's funding.
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Additionally you receive a budget for transportation calculated depending on the distance to Maříž from your town of legal residence: €350 (for under 5000 km) or €700 (for more than 5000 km) + a green mobility top-up (€350) if you travel by any means other than airplane (only if your town of residence is more than 600 km linear distance of Maříž)
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Possibility to develop longer term projects in collaboration with team members or other residents expanding beyond the residency.
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Feature in our online Research Archive documenting the residency projects.
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Individual support of your process through consulting our team, each experienced in different media, materials and fields of expertise.
No participation fee will be required from your side.
OPEN CALL
UNTIL 12.05.2024
We are looking for open-minded individuals (18 yo +) from any discipline. All activities will primarily be conducted in English.
In order to be eligible for applying, independently from your nationality, you have to be legally residing in one of the following countries: Albania, Austria, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, and Ukraine. (This criteria applies as the residency is funded by Culture Moves Europe)
However, if you are interested in joining the residency to some extent, but are not legally residing in one of the above mentioned countries, please feel free to get in touch and just drop us an email!
It has always been very dear to us to sustain already existing connections within our community. Especially for this residency, we appreciate if people who know Maříž or have already been involved in former projects, are keen to join and contribute through their experiences from the past years in regards to possible improvements.
HOW TO APPLY
To apply, please send a digital one-page motivation letter in English (don’t be shy about your grammar, we won't judge you on that) together with your CV + Portfolio (it doesnt need to be artistic, just because it is called Portfolio, both in English as well) to apply@lestnice.org by 23:59 on May 12th, 2024.
In your letter, please include your name, contact details (email), country of legal residence, why you're interested, what you hope to gain from the experience, and how you can imagine to contribute to the project.
Please feel free to contact us via email in case of further questions of any kind. apply@lestnice.org
We're excited to hear from you and can't wait to welcome you to Maříž in the summer of 2024! You will hear back from us until 24.5.2024 latest!
The residency is a biennial project organised by the non-profit organisation ‘Leštnice z.s.’ It is financially supported by the ‘Culture Moves Europe’ Residency Action programme.
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