For the Winterwerft 2024 International Theater Festival and Co-Laboratory we invite theater makers, dancers, painters, storytellers, sculptors, action artists, musicians, photographers, activists, speakers and filmmakers to join us in addressing the challenges we are confronted with, from the climate and ecosystem change to the humanitarian crisis. The festival is organized by Protagon International Performing Arts, based in Frankfurt am Main, a cultural and vibrant community space: We live together and we host resident artists as well as those joining us during the festival.

Winterwerft 2024 will be open to the public from 26 Jan to 11 Feb: 3 weekends; 9 days in total.

Theme and Context

The festival aims to bring together artists from different disciplines to collaborate, exchange and share ideas and creative input as well as to create an open space in which to reflect together, through the language of art, about the challenge of being Bodenlos – losing ground. Metaphorically, but also practically, we are losing our lands, our soil, our planet, and our heritage. How can art, music and theater help to raise awareness and stimulate political action in the public?

Within this framework, our “Losing Ground gallery” offers space to artworks by regional and national artists* as well as internationally to present and expose their work: paintings, sculptures, film, video art, visual arts, photography and literary works are welcome.

How you can participate

Artists* can contribute in different ways:

1. Art exhibition/installation. If you leave abroad and/or do not have the possibility to join the festival, but you are still interested in sharing your work and stay connected with us, you can submit a proposal for the Gallery-exhibition. In this case, if selected, your artwork will be exposed in our art-gallery space.
2. Art- intervention, workshop, reading: In addition to exposing your artwork, you can share your creative process or artistic method in a form of an art intervention, a live performance, a guided tour, a reading or a workshop for the public. We highly encourage artists to meet us and the public, establish a dialogue and share with us.
3. In-house workshop process: Aside from the public events, the festival hosts an interdisciplinary artistic laboratory, called Co-Laboratory for artists (theater, performance, music, visual art, etc.) in which the residents of the Protagon collective join the guest-artists from the festival in a “community” – artistic process learning from each other, and creating a final work-demonstration performance. Within this framework visual and media- artists can submit a proposal for a workshop on a specific method or approach (visual art, drawing, scenography, etc.). Please note that for this section, we have a limited number of positions available.

HOW TO APPLY:

Send us by email your proposal with the following information:

Texts must be attached as a WORD/PDF FILE named as: Winterwerft24_Gallery_YOUR NAME

Photo and Video must be attached separately and named:  Winterwerft24_NAME OF ARTWORK_YOUR NAME.

• Short description (one page max) of the artwork/intervention you want to exhibit/present and how it relates to the theme of Winterwerft (find here more about Winterwerft and the previous editions). Please specify if it is for the exhibition only or it includes workshop, or other form of interaction.
• How you imagine your work and your presence (if it applies) to relate and contribute to the festival.
• Your name and picture as you want them to appear on the program and flyer of the festival; and a short bio (max 100 words).
• List of the artworks you want to exhibit with: Title (if applies);  text (100 words max.) description, as it will be put beside the artwork;
• Photo or video material that show your artwork;
• Photo Material (up to 3 pictures/Images) for the social media (attached as separate file, quality +- 300 dpi / 3000×2000);
• Technical information: dimension,  space requirements, technical support, materials (hanger, projectors, special cables, frames, etc.)
• Additional technical or logistic information/requirements

During the preparation of the gallery we ask the artist to be available to set up the work during one day between 23th and 25th January. The opening of the gallery will be on the 26th January 2024.

Send your application to: gallery@protagon.net

The Open Call will be open until 26.11.23. You will hear back from us until 11.12.