Initiatives Onassis AiR The School of Infinite Rehearsals 2020/21

The School of Infinite Rehearsals 2021/22

For our second year of The School of Infinite Rehearsals, we want to look inwardly and also outwardly, for the spatial and temporal structures that affect the ways we live, the ways we act and the ways we come together.

Onassis AiR was founded on the principles of learning and doing with others. It is situated within a complex nexus of relationships, between a large-scale art institution and a self-organized community of peers. This duality is continuously traversed in our day-to-day housekeeping, while we are rehearsing our different modes of being with others. Any form of knowledge reflects the particular conditions within which it is generated, as well as the specific social relationships, the locations and the particular perspectives of the people who come to constitute these knowledges.

How do we relate to others and how do we organise our decisions? What modes of governance do we adhere to and how do we shape them?

The School of Infinite Rehearsals 2021/22 delves into two research topics from different focal points.

During Fall 2021, Movement V & VI groups will collectively explore issues of governance, delving into self-organization (Movement V), and institutions (Movement VI).

In Spring 2022, Movement VII & VIII groups will tackle areas of economies, with a focus on community economies (Movement VII) and philanthropy (Movement VIII).

What economic systems do we choose to be complicit in and how much agency do we claim to implement radical alternatives? How do we institute our knowledge(s) and acknowledge our institutional complacency or complicity?

WHO SELECTS AND HOW?

Carrying on with the ethos of an undisciplined, artist-run community of peers, the selection for the The School of Infinite Rehearsals 2021/22 was done through a peer-to-peer process by the Onassis ΑiR 2020/21 participants.

The selection was conducted in two phases. The first phase follows a very specific model based on blind-selection methods, where no personal and biographical information (i.e. name, bio, CV, work sample etc.) are visible to the peer review panel in order to safeguard the selection process from any form of nepotism. Divided into couples, each person reviewed all the applications assigned to the couple individually, with only two questions & answers for each application, without seeing any other information about the applicant. All the applications that passed from selection Phase I were reviewed in detail by the team of Onassis AiR (Ash Bulayev, Nefeli Myrodia and Myrto Katsimicha), with an advisory board consisting of Grégory Castéra, Binna Choi & Marianna Takou (Casco Art Institute), Ilaria Conti, Karthik Pandian, Piergiorgio Pepe. Finally, all the pre-selected participants that passed the two first selection phases were interviewed by the Onassis ΑiR team.

WHAT IS OFFERED?

- Each participant of the program receives a research stipend of 2,500 EUR

- Travel expenses and accommodation for all participants who do not reside in Αthens

- Access to the Onassis ΑiR space and access to studio space and to shared studio for group activities

- Covered costs of any collective site-visits and all other activities within the framework of each Movement

- Each Movement Group of The School of Infinite Rehearsals receives a collective budget (5,000 EUR) that can be used for the collective research needs and for any invited guests, research trips, etc.

- Access to shared audio/visual/lighting equipment

- Free entrance to all performances or events at the Οnassis 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, guests and the team in the kitchen of Οnassis AiR