Onassis AiR Programs 2019/20
Onassis AiR was born in September 2019, when the first group of artists & curators walked into an empty top floor of what has now become a home to an always growing community of peers. During our first year we experimented through four different modules, that tested our preconceived notions of what collective research means, scarcity and abundance, friendship and imagining another way of being and thinking and working together.
In September 2019, Onassis AiR, the (inter)national artistic research residency program, opened the doors of an empty building in the center of Αthens to house a community of peers from Greece and from abroad, from Delhi to Los Αngeles, from Canada to Palestine. Today, after inhabiting this space, filling it with hours of thinking, talking, reading, testing, and making as well as eating together, Onassis ΑiR has become a home. This house now belongs to more than 30 artists, curators and art practitioners, who between September 2019 and June 2020, are supported through four (4) modules:
- The Critical Practices Program: a collective three-month program for artists, curators & practitioners living and working in Greece who are going through a critical shift in their practice, and urgently need time to pause and re-think their existing working methodologies
- (Inter)national Residency Program: a one-month individual research program for Greek and international artists & curators with a specific and urgent research that must happen in Αthens
- Exchange Residencies Program: a program that supports Greek artists & curators to travel and conduct a 2-3 month individual research abroad, through collaborations with two partner institutions, Beirut Art Residency (Lebanon) and Capacete (Brazil)
- Emergency Fellowships Program: a responsive research fellowship meant for anyone living anywhere in the world who has an extremely time-sensitive and unanticipated research need that cannot wait to go through the usual institutional application process
SOME NOTIONS THAT DESCRIBE OUR FIRST YEAR IN EXISTENCE
Process / time / out-of-focus / pause / unlearning / continuity / self-organisation / research / displacement / undefined / de-pressuring / infect / exchange of perspective / rupture / contemporary / urgency / necessity / tailor-made support / practice-based / transparent selection criteria / peer-to-peer / alternating responsibility / investment in continuity or intentional disruption
WHO SELECTS AND HOW?
The selection process of Onassis ΑiR will always stay in flux. From our first year onwards, we adapt to a peer-to-peer selection, where the previous participants go through and review all the submitted applications in a blind process. For our first year (2019/20) we released an Open Call in October 2018 and because we did not yet have any participants taking part in the program, we invited four independent practitioners (Myriam Ben Salah, Efi Birba, Daniel Blanga Gubbay and Barbara van Lindt), to make the selection anonymously.
WHAT IS OFFERED?
- Each participant of the program receives a monthly research stipend varying from 1.000 EUR per month to 1.500 EUR per month depending on the module they are participating in
- Each participant receives an individual research and materials budget varying between 500–1.500 EUR depending on the module they are participating in
- All mentors, guests, those who give a talk or a workshop, get paid a fee for their participation, as well as travel expenses and accommodation
- International and Greek participants who do not reside in Αthens receive accommodation in a shared apartment and a travel budget consisting of one round trip ticket to/from Αthens
- 24/7 access to the Οnassis AiR space and access to studio space and to shared studio for group activities
- Covered costs of any collective research trips and all other activities within the framework of each module
- The Critical Practices Program participants receive a collective budget (5,000 EUR) that can be used for the presentations and shared outcomes during collective activities
- Access to shared audio/visual/lighting equipment
- Access to a mentor pool of artists, curators and other professionals for up to 5 hours of feedback sessions to discuss their individual research
- Free entrance to all performances or events at the Onassis Cultural Center and other venues of the Οnassis Foundation
- Free access to all programmed workshops, lectures, talks, screenings at Οnassis AiR
- Daily group lunches prepared on a rotating basis by the participants, mentors, guests and the team, in the kitchen of Οnassis AiR
