AADK Spain

Aktuelle Architektur der Kultur | Centro Negra

AADK Spain invites all artists and researchers who wish to work on the topics of body, territory and spatiality to participate in its Artist Residency Program. AADK Spain is an international artistic platform that opens up spaces for research and contemporary creation. Currently based in Centro Negra (Blanca, Murcia), it holds several programs among which its Artist Residency is foremost. Throughout the year the platform also holds a wide variety of activities, workshops and events. Furthermore, AADK Spain creates networks with other cultural and art enterprises in order to facilitate mobility for the artists that it hosts and foster their work at a national and international level. AADK's philosophy:

• AADK Spain is an independent project run by artists that works and functions with horizontal dynamics.
• It advocates for the decentralisation of culture and access to contemporary art in non-urban areas.
• It addresses local issues as a means to understand global problems.
• It creates space for transdisciplinary research and debate where knowledge exchange and creative collaboration are always encouraged.
• It holds the value of experimental and creative processes over the need for finished art pieces.
• It researches new artistic practices with the aim of expanding the borders of creative disciplines and exploring transversal pedagogies.
• It is an organic and absorptive platform, that can be transformed and resignified through all its participants.
• It promotes the work of the artists who have taken part in the project, understanding them as an active part of itself.

AADK Spain understands residency programs as contextualized spaces where location models the practices and modifies both its participants and the local communities. Thus, their Artist Residency is an interdisciplinary and socially committed program that offers its attendants a space for analysis and production. It aims to facilitate research in rural environments, highlighting the value of local knowledge as a means to re-think how these locations can position themselves in an era of massive urbanization. This program is a space for reflection and artistic research that encourages linking research with the historical, cultural and geographical context of the region.
Throughout their stay, participants create a temporary community that shares experiences and processes, fostering debate and a transversal perspective of their projects. AADK Spain provides tutelage and curatorial follow-up as well as assistance in the production and management of projects and Open Studios night on the last Saturday of each month. Additionally, participants are encouraged to keep in touch with the organisers after their residency ends, so that they can promote their work in forthcoming exhibitions curated by their platform as well as in papers, conferences and/or publications. The amount of participants varies every month, but reaches a maximum of six projects (including individual proposals or duos/collectives).

For this call, priority (not exclusive) will be given to intervention proposals developed in the landscape, conceived from any creative discipline (sound, performance, visual arts, architecture, agriculture or any other approach that is linked to the theme). Such interventions may be carried out in the natural or semi-urban area of Blanca. For those interested in working with the community of Blanca, please bear in mind that projects of less than two months will not be accepted. The ability of artists to establish respectful relationships with the inhabitants and to be willing to engage in trial-error processes will be fundamental for these proposals. Theoretical research projects of any scientific or humanistic discipline may be applied to this call, provided that they have the artistic practice as their object of study.

• Public presentation of your process.
• Connections with local, regional, national and international institutions.
• The possibility to participate in other programmes of AADK.
• Dissemination of your work after artist-in-residence programme.

Housing facilities are divided into two areas: a group of four apartments bordering Centro Negra, and an old house in the center of the town. The latter was the former Video Art Museum, EDOM. The apartments are equipped with private kitchens and toilets with shower. They have a terrace for common use and direct access to the main building. Staying in private apartments has an extra cost. EDOM has six bedrooms, three bathrooms and a kitchen with a living room. It is located in the heart of the village so it has excellent access to all shops and stores. It is also ideal to get immersed in the daily life of Blanca. Both housing areas have access to washing machines and are equipped with bedding and towels..

Centro Negra is the main building of AADK Spain. It serves both as working area and exhibition space. The building is located on the slope of a mountain, reachable only on foot. It stands at the foot of a Moorish castle of the twelfth century. At the beginning of the 20th century this area was allocated for animal husbandry. Therefore, an assembly of small poultry yards slowly developed, but fell later into disuse. In 2010 a group of these constructions were recovered and transformed into the modern building of the Center that incorporates the bare rock of the mountain.
The current building is made up of six different and interconnected spaces. Each of them is unique in its size and morphology, it is a building of great versatility and capable of adapting to multiple purposes.

At Centro Negra you will find support at every level of your project from AADK. The conditions of the stay and the access to equipment and materials can be discussed individually either remotely or during your stay.

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